Diddy's Kong Quest
by Captain Spock
Summary: When Donkey Kong gets apenapped by K.Rool, Diddy and Dixie embark on an adventure to rescue him.
1. Apenapped

Chapter One: Apenapped

Donkey Kong relaxed in his beach chair now that everyone had finally buzzed off. A few weeks ago he and Diddy had recaptured the banana hoard from King K. Rool's clutches, and ever since they returned everyone on DK isle had wanted to talk to him. The worst of them was his grandfather Cranky, who was continuously bragging to DK about "his days", and how hard and dangerous hís adventures had been compared to DK's. Funky had decided DK was a "totally gnarly dude" and wanted to surf with him all day long. Swanky had tried to con DK into participating into one of his rigged games a lot. Of course DK loved the extra attention, especially from Candy, but enough was enough and now he wanted some time of his own.

Fortunately, Diddy had stopped following him around wherever he went. Perhaps he was angry with DK, as Donkey had claimed to everyone Diddy had been knocked out during the first minute of their fight with King K. Rool, and that DK had finished the crocodile in a long battle, while in reality, it had been DK who was knocked out during the first minute of their fight with the crocodile, and Diddy who had finished him, though DK couldn't understand how such a small monkey like Diddy could've beaten a strong, fat crocodile like K. Rool. DK felt kind of bad about treating his little buddy like that and figured he should try to make it up to him. Or, he thought, maybe Diddy stopped following him around because of that new girl on the island he'd made friends with, Dizzy or Trixie or something was her name. He'd seen Diddy hanging out with her a lot lately. Whatever the reason, DK was glad to be able to relax now. He closed his eyes. Just before falling asleep, he felt a cloud block the sun. _It will blow away soon... It won't bother me..._ he thought drowsily. He was wrong.

DK woke up by eight strong, scaly hands that grabbed him. He opened his eyes and started struggling, but the Kremlings had already tied him up. He was pulled up, towards the cloud, which turned out to be a large plane shaped like a crocodile. The plane's hangar was open, and he was pulled in. He hang on his ropes from the ceiling in the murky hangar. Before him stood his archenemy, K. Rool, wearing a pirate hat and a long red coat.

"Har-har-har-har-harr!", K. Rool laughed, "you will never see your friends or DK Island again!"

A Kremling injected DK with something and he fell asleep again.

–

DK woke up in a large cave, surrounded by Kremlings. It was mostly dark, but a few Kremlings carried torches. K. Rool was shouting at one of them. "I didn't tell you to give him THAT much sleeping potion, you moron! I want him awake NOW, or I'm kutting your head off right here!"

The kremling's green skin turned white as he passed out with fear.

Another kremling shouted: "Look, Kap'n, he's awake!"

A twisted smile appeared on K. Rool's face. "Ah, my friend, how nice of you to join us."  
DK groaned. "Let me go you stupid crock!"

K. Rool's smile broadened. "I don't be thinkin' so. First, you're going to help me enter the Krockodile Kore. Read the tekst on the wall here."

Donkey could see letters on the wall, but since he couldn't read he had no clue what it said.

The crocodile laughed. "You kan't even read kan you? Well, I'll-"

A Kremling interrupted him. "We kan't read either, Kaptain!"

K. Rool stopped smiling. "That's bekause you're a bunch of useless morons. Now shut up, so I kan read it to our guest." he scraped his throat.

"Behind these doors a power lays,

a power that kan be used in many ways.

Many lands kan be konkwered with it,

anything it's kontroller sees fit.

But to open the doors, a hero has to bleed,

a hero who helps anyone in their time of need,

a hero, free from any greed.

Of all monkeys the most klever,

One smarter was born never.

For each drop of his blood that is spilled in this room,

One millimetre will open of these doors that guard the chamber of doom."

The crocodile paused. "I figure ye be the hero this thing speaks of. To open the doors, lots of your blood'll need to flow. And then, I kan konkwer the world!" He laughed. "So, my friend. We're going to chop you into little pieces and then-"

He was interrupted by a kremling. "Kaptain! I don't think it's a very good poem, sir!"  
K. Rool turned to him. "What the- what do you mean, Krittik?"

"Well, it doesn't have any rhythm, it's konstantly two words rhyming and then suddenly three, the sentences all have different numbers of syllabels, and "One smarter was born never" isn't grammatikally korrekt!"

"Ye be right," K. Rool said, "it looks like the guy who wrote this was some- wait, IT DOESN'T MATTER ANYWAY!" He shouted. "Now shut yer trap! Where was I... Oh yeah," he turned back to DK, "So, Kong, I'm going to kut off the ends of your fingers. Then I'll kut your toes off, then the rest of your fingers, your arms, your legs, until what's left is some kind of goulash!" He laughed again, very loud this time, while DK's left hand was grabbed by crocodiles. He tried to struggle free, but together they were a lot stronger than him on his own.

K. Rool drew his knife. "Let's start with the tip of your little finger..."

DK covered his eyes with his right hand. He didn't fully understand why, but it was obvious K. Rool was going to hurt him... Then, he felt a burning pain in his left hand's little finger, shortly followed by a tremendous roar of fury. "What the hell?" K. Rool screamed, "Nothing happened! The doors should be opening a few centimetres now!" He punched DK in the face. "Looks like you're not our hero... Hmpf, I don't know why I even thought it would be you. I'll bet you just stole the banana hoard from me through dumb luck. Who kould this hero be..."

Despite the pain in his hand and face, DK laughed at the crocodile's failed plan. "Perhaps you should ask Cranky! That stuff on the wall sounds like he wrote it about himself!"

K. Rool punched DK again. Then a smile suddenly came to his evil face. "Hmmm... I've got a very kunning plan..."

–

Diddy ran to the beach as fast as he could, followed shortly by his friend Dixie. The alarm sounding could only mean something terrible had happened... The only time it had sounded before was when the banana hoard had been stolen, and he and DK had plunged themselves into a great adventure, of which they had fortunately returned triumphant. Well, he added sourly, apparently only DK had returned triumphant, as no one seemed to remember Diddy had been along on the adventure as well. Everyone wanted to hear DK's stories, talk to DK. DK had even lied and told them all that he had been the one who had defeated K. Rool in the end. Diddy had been more or less ignored by the other Kongs during their 'victory party'. He had walked away from it, disgusted and jealous at DK, until he was stopped by a voice behind him.

"You're Diddy Kong aren't you?" the voice had asked. He didn't recognize it, but it was a lovely voice.

"I'm surprised you even know my name." had been his cynical answer as he turned around. The voice's owner turned out to be a girl with a long, blonde ponytail, a pink baret and a pink shirt. She looked startled. "I'm sorry if I bothered you. I'll just leave."

Diddy regretted his rudeness. "No, I'm sorry. Please stay, err..."

"Dixie's my name. You seem upset, what's wrong?"

"It's just that everyone seems to think DK was all alone on his adventure, and only listens to his stories. No one even wanted to hear me tell it."

"Well, tell me about your adventure then. I'll listen to you."

"What, the whole adventure?"

"Yeah, I didn't hear it from Donkey yet, so you tell me."

"Well, it's kind of a long story..."

"It's still early in the evening, so we've got time. We can walk on the beach if you like while you tell." She said with an encouraging smile.

So they walked on the beach while Diddy told Dixie the whole adventure, from the theft of the banana hoard until the battle versus K. Rool. When he had finished, night had fallen and the sky was littered by stars.

"So _you_ actually defeated K. Rool and saved DK's life? No wonder you were upset." Dixie said.

"Yes, I did, but I feel a lot better now that I've had a chance to tell it all to someone. Besides, I suppose DK did most of the work on the adventure." Diddy said modestly.

"But still, it's absolutely unfair!"

"I know, I walked away angrily from the 'victory party', remember? But it feels a lot better now that you've listened to me."

Dixie smiled. "Hey, that's what friends do."

Diddy liked the idea of being friends with Dixie. He gave her an affirmative smile. "By the way, how long have you lived on DK island? I've never seen you before."

"My sister Tiny and I moved to this island while you where on your quest."

"But where did you come from?"

That question seemed to make her sad. "Oh, just some island." She answered sadly. Diddy decided not to pursue the matter as she was obviously uncomfortable talking about it.

"I wonder what the alarm is all about?" Dixie said, returning him to the present.

"So do I," he answered, "last time it sounded, the banana hoard had been stolen, but since we just walked past the hoard, something else must've happened.

As they ran onto the beach, they saw Wrinkly, Cranky and Funky discussing something.

"What happened?" Diddy asked.

"Read this, dearie." Wrinkly Kong said with tears in her eyes, handing him a note.

_I have kidnapped that lumbering fool Donkey Kong and you will never see him again!  
__Har-har-har-har!  
Yours truly, _

_Kaptain K. Rool._

"That poor boy..." Wrinkly said.

"Pah!" Cranky sneered, "That lazy, good-for-nothing idiot! No-one ever kidnapped me in my days!"

"Yes they did!" Wrinkly replied, "And our son had to free you from him! You deserved it too, as you had kidnapped that guy's girlfriend and thrown barrels at him."

Cranky wanted to say something back, but he was interrupted by Diddy. "This discussion is useless! I'm going after K. Rool to save DK!"

"What, a young wippersnapper like you?" Cranky said, "you're even worse then that stupid grandson of mine!"

"I will try anyway!" Diddy persisted.

"I dunno Diddy-dude." Funky said, "That K-dude is seriously uncool. It'll be dangerous going all alone."

"He won't be going alone, I'm going with him." Dixie said.

"Are you sure? It will be pretty dangerous, you know." Diddy said.

"It'll be even more dangerous going all alone." she said.

"An adventure isn't like a vacation, Dixie. And you barely even know DK."

"I'm not going on the adventure to save DK." She said defiantly. "I'm going to help you. You're my best friend, I'm not letting you plunge yourself in danger alone."

Diddy felt rather moved by this, and struggled to find something to say. Eventually he settled on: "All right, you can come. Funky, could you fly us to the Gangplank Galleon?"

"Sure, dude."

"Could we wait a few more minutes?" Dixie asked, "There is something I'll definitely need on our adventure." And she ran off.


	2. The Gangplank Galleon Gang

Chapter Two: The Gangplank Galleon-Gang

"I can see the Galleon, Funky!" Dixie shrieked, spotting the Galleon after about thirty minutes of searching. Since Funky had forgotten the exact location of the Gangplank Galleon, they had to search for it, flying above the ocean.

"Thanks, Dixie-dude." Funky said, while he turned the plane. The ship was still far away, barely visible at all and in the same state Donkey and Diddy had left it: stuck on a rock. _Great_, he thought, _perhaps we'll be able to find DK quickly and get out of here._

"Be prepared to fight, Dix." he said, "If DK _is_ on that ship, they'll probably have a welcoming comittee waiting for us."

Dixie nodded nervously. Diddy took another look at the approaching Galleon. It'd been a majestic ship the first time he saw it, but now it looked old, dirty and broken. One of its many masts had snapped and hung with the tip in the ocean. Large holes where the deck had rotted away maimed the Galleon. Most of the sails where shredded, all of them were a sickly yellow. _It's a shame,_ Diddy thought, _that_ _such a beautiful ship got damaged so badly_. _I wonder if we could have prevented it from crashing on those rocks after we' defeated K. Rool._ He imagined himself wearing a big hat and standing at the wheel of the ship. _Captain Kong._ He sniggered, reaising he knew absolutely nothing about ships and would probably make a lousy captain.

The barrel plane landed softly on the ship's front deck. There were no Kremlings to be seen. "You dudes go find that uncool reptile," Funky said, "I'll stay here and wait for ya."

Diddy and Dixie got out of the plane. The ship creaked in the wind and the waves splashed, but other than that it was silent.

"I don't think K. Rool took DK here." Dixie spoke.

"Or he's laying a trap... Stay watchful. Let's see if I can remember the way to the Kaptain's Kabin."

Diddy hadn't excactly had too much time to look around last time he was on the galleon though, so it took a while to find the Kabin. The Kaptain's Kabin turned out to be empty, though Diddy saw a golden coin and pocketed it.

"I think we would have noticed a trap by now." Dixie said nervously. "We'd better have Funky take us somewhere else. This place is quite scary..."

"Where do you suggest we go? I don't know where else they might have taken DK. Our only option is to try to find _someone_ we can ask."

So the Kongs walked on the deck for some time, until they heard voices. They snuck towards them to find a dozen Kremling playing cards in a cabin. A sign on the cabin said:

**He**d_k_WAr**t**eR**z o**F Thu _**G**__e_N**G**PLa**n**k ge**lLE**on g**E**_**N**_**g**

"We could ask _them_." Diddy said.

"Yeah, great idea," Dixie said cynically, "We'll just go in and say: "Hi there, sorry to disturb your game, but we're looking for your boss who's kidnapped our friend Donkey Kong. Could you please tell us where he is, so we can kill him?"

Diddy grinned. Dixie's deadpan remarks always made him laugh. "Perhaps we can lure one of them out," Diddy said, "and make him tell us."

"What do you want to use to lure one out?"

"This coin." He took the coin he had found from his pocket.

"Where did you get that?" Dixie asked.

"I found it in the Kaptain's Kabin and thought it might come in use somewhere."

Dixie coughed a cough that sounded suspiciously similar to the word 'kleptomaniac'. Diddy threw the coin a few metres from the Gang's kabin, as he and Dixie hid behind a barrel close to the cabin. It wasn't long before one of the Kremlings saw the coin and found an excuse to go outside.

"Arrr... I gotta go take a leak... I'll be back in a minute."

The Kremling walked out of the cabin and picked up the coin. "Arr... Monee!"

At that moment, Diddy and Dixie dived upon him from their hiding place and dragged him out of sight. Dixie wrapped her hands around his jaws so he couldn't call for help while Diddy took the Kremling's sword and placed it on the Kremling's throat.

"Dixie is going to let go of your mouth," Diddy said in his most threathening voice, "if you make any sound, or attempt to escape, I'll cut your throat."

Dixie let go. The crocodile, whose skin had turned to a sick, pale green from fear, didn't say a thing.

"Where are K. Rool and Donkey Kong?" Diddy asked him.

"I didn't do it!" The crocodile wailed softly, "Please don't hurt me! Poor Klikker never hurts a fly!"

Diddy almost pitied him. "I asked you a question, Klikker." He said trying to intimidate Klikker (Which wasn't easy for a small monkey threatening a crocodile).

"I don't know." Klikker wailed, "Last time I saw the Kaptain was when the apes defeated him."

Diddy had feared that. "K. Rool isn't on his ship?"

"There isn't much for him to do around here, is there? We're stuck on a rock in kase you hadn't noticed."

"Well, do you at least know where he is?"

"I don't know. You'd better ask Krow. The Kap'n placed her in kommand of the ship. But please don't tell anyone I've told you this. If you do, I'm dead..."  
Diddy raised the sword. "Only if you don't tell anyone we're here."  
Klikker slowly stood up, walked back to the cabin, and then suddenly ran while shouting: "HELP! KONGS ON THE SHIP!"

_Uh oh._

Eleven Kremlings emerged from their cabin, so Diddy dropped the sword and started running. The Kongs were faster than the Kremlings, but they'd soon reach the edge of the ship and have nowhere to go. And then, it'd be eleven (One of the Kremlings had a wooden leg, so he couldn't pursue them) versus two.

A rope hang down from the mainbrace within reaching distance, so the Kongs climbed up as rapidly as they could.

"I hope they can't climb..." Dixie said worried. The Kremlings climbed into the mainbrace without trouble but pretty slowly.

"We'll have to jump for the next mast, Dix."

It was quite a distance, but Diddy thought he could make it. It would be an easy jump for Dixie, who could slow her descent by spinning her hair like a helicopter's blades. He jumped and caught the ropes hanging from the other mast. A second later, Dixie followed. They climbed up to the lowest sail's gaff. Balancing, they walked over the thin gaff to the next mast.

_We should have brought Lanky Kong along for this adventure,_ Diddy thought, _he would probably be able to walk on this gaff with his hands playing violin with his feet._ But Lanky was working in a circus somewhere, so Diddy'd have to manage. Diddy and Dixie swung on a rope to another mast. They continued climbing like this until they had lost the Kremlings. Then they climbed to a small plateau around the mast to rest, both of them panting from all the running about.

"Remind me never to trust a Kremling again..." Diddy said.

Dixie smiled. "I will. So what do we do next? This ship is way too big to just wander around and see if we run into this Krow. Especially considering that crocodile gang is after us..."

Diddy thought about this. "I think we'd best go back to Funky and fly around the ship with his plane."

"Agreed. But let's wait a few more minutes..." Dixie said. "When you told me about your last adventure, it didn't seem like there was so much running about..."

"Are you having second thoughts about coming along?" Diddy teased her.

"Am I so transparent?" she said, "No, of course I'm not having second thoughts, but I just didn't think I'd be running around so much."

"Well, it wouldn't be much of an adventure if all we did was wander about and enjoy the scenery, would it? And now, it's time for us to make a run for Funky's plane."

Diddy sounded quite relaxed, but in fact he was scared by the idea of going to the deck again. He hated fear. How could he ever be a hero if he kept being afraid? When he was adventuring with Donkey Kong, he had tried solving his problem by pretending he wasn't afraid, and just doing the things he was scared of. Like that, he hoped, he would eventually become truly brave and be a hero. He had used this little trick during the whole adventure, but so far it hadn't worked yet. He was still the same coward he had been before. It was a sort of lying, and he didn't really like it, but he figured he had to if he wanted to become brave. So he just ignored his fear again.

The monkeys climbed down the mainbrace and landed on the deck. While it seemed the coast was clear, a Kremling shrieked alarm. The Kongs started running again as the Gangplank Galleon Gang was after them again. While running, Diddy realised where Krow was.

"We've been two bloody fools, Dix!" he said, "Krow is of course at the crow's nest!"

"Of course!" Dixie said, "Let's climb up the next mast!"

Diddy didn't see the gap until he was within a metre of it. "STOP!" he yelled at Dixie, while desperately trying to stop his momentum. She collided with him and they both fell into the darkness.

With an enormous splash, Diddy hit cold water. He ended up a few metres below the surface, and swam up. A second after he reached the surface, Dixie's head surfaced too.

"Phew, we're still alive." he said, relieved.

"Yeah..." Dixie said in a very worried tone.

Diddy looked around. They only way out of the dark hole were the twenty metres tall smooth vertical walls without a single place to hold. The water was very deep and cold... Panic reared its ugly head as Diddy realised they were trapped and would probably drown. He could see panic enter Dixie's green eyes as well.

"N-Nothing to worry about, we'll just have to find an exit below the water..." His voice didn't sound as calm as his words.

"It's really dangerous. We could drown..." Dixie said in a small, scared voice.

"It's our only option. We can't fly."

"I suppose you're right. We'll have to try. You can show the way, as you're a quicker swimmer."

Diddy took a deep breath of air, realising it might be his last one, and dived, followed by Dixie. He started counting his time underwater as he swam into the darkness. A flooded corridor came by so they swam into it. It was less than two metres high and wide... Thirty seconds... Diddy had to stop himself from swimming at full speed, as Dixie wasn't as fast as he was. They had done enough swimming contests together on DK isle to prove that... Though they had done one that very morning, the warm, clear waters seemed like a century ago. Diddy was beginning to feel the need for air at seventy seconds, but there was still no sign of it... He realised that they might just make it back to the shaft if they turned back right now, but that would be useless as they couldn't get out that way and the cold water would only diminish their forces... One hundred and twenty seconds... Diddy's lungs were burning now. He looked back and saw Dixie had even greater difficulties, and was falling behind. He waited for her and grabbed her hand while swimming to help her... One hundred and sixty seconds after he'd last breathed black spots started appearing in his vision... He had to keep swimming... Two hundred seconds... There has to be air somewhere... Keep swimming... Dixie's strokes slowed, and eventually stopped altogether. _I have to save us..._ Diddy thought, after four minutes without air, as his thoughts became fuzzy... His vision turned black while he saw a flash of something blue, far away...

Air entered Diddy's lungs, and his head started clearing up again. He had never realised how good air tasted... For a moment he wondered if he was dead and this was some kind of afterlife, but quickly discarded that thought, as the place he was didn't seem like any kind of afterlife he'd ever heard about, and he'd never even believed in an afterlife in the first place. He was in a small pocket of air sticking to a small hole in the ceiling of the flooded corridor. Dixie's head and shoulders were in the pocket of air too, and she was as flabbergasted as he was. They were both sitting on something underwater. Then the something lifted his head above the water. It was a blue fish with a long, swordlike nose.

"Enguarde!" Diddy called, "you saved us!".

"Indeed I deed." Enguarde answered in his french accent. "When I 'eard Donkey 'ad been keednapped, I decided to come and 'elp you, Deedee. Who ees ze lady?" he asked.

"M-My name is Dixie." Dixie said, still rather surprised, "I'm helping Diddy on his quest."  
"My name ees Enguarde, Deezee. I weel try to get you monkeys out of 'ere, but you'll 'ave to 'old your breas for some time. And we might meet some Lockzhaws..."

The monkeys took another deep breath and Enguarde dived. The Kongs held on thight as Enguarde swam very rapidly, reaching the next air pocket in less then thirty seconds.

–

Enguarde dived again, after he allowed the Kongs a brief breathing time. He swam through the flooded corridors, wondering how it would be like to breath air and walk the land. Sometimes he envied those who had legs, but today, he pitied them. A place like this, which was a nice and natural spot for Enguarde, was extremely dangerous to them. And they were so slow underwater...  
Enguarde saw something orange from the corner of his eye, and was surrounded by lockjaws a second later. _Merde!_ he thought. The largest lockjaw swam toward him.

"Give us these mammals on your back, swordfish, and you'll live." he said.

"Over my dead body." Enguarde answered.

"It can be arranged..." The fish said. Enguarde swam forward with all his speed and wounded the Lockjaw with his sharp nose. Enguarde escaped from the circle of lockjaws and swam away. The Lockjaws came after him, but Enguarde was faster. He kept swimming on, and when he started worrying about the Kongs on his back, he reached stairs going up, out of the water. The Kongs hopped off his back, while he shouted:

"'Urry, I 'ave to go!"

The lockjaws were very close now, so Enguarde dived and fled into another corridor.

–

The Kongs ran through the dark corridors back to the deck. They had to hurry, as they had wasted enough time falling down that stupid hole and nearly drowning. When Enguarde had saved them, Dixie had already passed out, and nearly given in to her breathing reflex, which would have caused her to breathe water and die a very painful death. Glad though she was she had survived, she just wished she hadn't passed out first. She was here to help Diddy on his quest, not to hold him up. Adventure had sounded a lot easier in Diddy's story than it was in reality. Still, she wasn't planning to give up, no matter what lay ahead.

Dixie shivered. _Great... Hypothermia. Just what we needed._ She thought. The cold water and air were starting to affect her. She wasn't going to ask Diddy to wait, though, as she was determined to show Diddy that, though she had less experience than him, she would make a good adventuress. Instead of waiting to dry up, she just squeezed the water out of her ponytail as she ran. A storm was raging around the ship by the time they reached the deck. Rain poured down from the skies, the wind raged and the ship creaked. Climbing up to the crow's nest would be very dangerous in this weather, not just because the wind could blow them away, but also because Dixie wasn't be able to use her hair to float in weather like this. The Kongs climbed into the closest mast. Holding on to the mast was very difficult in this wind, while the rain and cold were numbed their hands. Dixie was shivering uncontrollably all over her body now.

After what seemed like an eternity of climbing ropes, balancing on gaffs and desparatly trying to keep her body out of the cold wind, they reached the topsail. Dixie didn't feel cold anymore, and didn't like that, as it meant her body temperature was getting too low. Perched on the crow's nest just ahead was a huge nest with large eggs. But no Krow. The Kongs walked to the nest when a large, black shadow appeared out of the storm.

"Watch out!" Dixie called, while she jumped back to dodge Krow's talons. Krow almost hit Diddy who started to run for his life pursued by the big bird. Dixie ran after them, but she wasn't fast enough to keep up. She had an idea and climbed into Krow's nest, throwing one of her large eggs out.

"Sorry about that. I hope that wasn't your favorite child..."

Krow shrieked and turned around, holding Diddy in her talons.

Dixie pushed an egg out of the nest. She had Krow's attention now, as the creature came flying her way.

Dixie threw another egg. "_Don't_ come any closer, or I'll start juggling."

"Stop killing my poor innocent children!" Krow shrieked, "Or I'll kill your friend!"

"You're in no position to make demands, Krow. You've got one hostage, I've got twelve." _Krack_. "Oops, I mean eleven."

Dixie realised she was killing innocent little baby birds, but she didn't care as long as she could save Diddy that way. He was her best friend and the kindest, smartest person she knew so she would save him at any cost.

Krow approached, so Dixie threw another egg. "I'd stay there if I were you. Now release Diddy!"

Krow seemed to hesitate, so Dixie broke another one of her eggs to persuade her. "Nine left, Krow! You can still save them!" _Krack!_ "Eight!"  
Krow put Diddy down and let him go. "I did what you wanted! Now get out of my nest!"

"No." Dixie said, "First you need to answer a quesion: where did K. Rool take Donkey Kong?"

Krow's eyes blazed with fury. "To Krockodile Isle of kourse! Now get out of here!"

"Where is this Crocodile Isle?" Dixie asked.

"It's straight to the East, for 400 kilometres."

Dixie picked an egg up. "I'm going to leave your nest. But I'll take this egg with me until we've left the ship. If you try anything fancy, I'll turn it into an omelette." She climbed down, holding the egg with her hair.

"Thanks Dixie," Diddy said, "I thought I was a goner..."

–

Krow tried to think of a way to kill that horrible female monkey and save her child. The monkey had murdered seven of Krow's kids and would probably kill the one she was taking as well. Krow would really enjoy killing _her_... Or better even, capture her, tear her belly open and eat her organs one by one while she was still alive, until she begged for forgiveness for the brutal killing of half Krow's nest.

Krow decided the monkeys had moved a safe distance away from her nest and desperately tried to save her egg. At the last moment, the female Kong saw her and she threw the egg in Krow's face. Krow's head hurt from the inpact and the splinters of the shell, but her heart hurted even more as she realised the mess she was covered with was her own child.

In the meantime the monkeys were running back to her nest again, so she flew after them, still disoriented from the bang on her head. She caught up with the monkeys at her nest, and she could almost taste their blood in her mouth... And then a gigantic crash came as she collided with her nest. The narrow beam it rested on cracked, broke off and fell down into the depths. She shrieked, more furious than she'd ever done before. All she had left now was vengeance. She furiously flew after the fleeing monkeys, who were trapped at the end of the topsail. Krow had nearly reached them, but they jumped down off the topsail, and were caught by a barrel-like plane. Krow tried to catch the plane, but it flew away way faster then she could fly. She had failed. Her fifteen children were dead, and she wasn't even able to get her rightful vengeance. She flew high up into the sky, to kill herself by plunging herself in the ocean. Right before she hit the waves, her last thought was: _I'll be back to get you, Dixie Kong..._


	3. Crashed in the Crocodile Cauldron

Chapter Three: Crashed in the Crocodile Cauldron

Diddy braced himself as Funky turned the plane and took off rapidly. Now that his main concern was no longer escaping from Krow's claws, he felt very cold. He suspected he was suffering from hypothermia from the cold water and the wind. When Funky saw him shiver, he said: "Hey, dude, looks like yeh got a cold. You too, Dixie-dude. There is a blanket somewhere between the crap lyin' around in this plane. You two should get under it. Fighting while yeh're freezin' won't be easy."

They found the blanket and wrapped it around them as they sat down on the floor, as there was only one seat in Funky's small plane, and it was the pilot's.

"Thanks for saving me, Dix." Diddy said.

"I'm sure you'd have done the same thing for me." Dixie smiled. Diddy smiled back. This caused Dixie to giggle, which caused Diddy to laugh, and within moments both of them had started a sudden, roaring laughter that continued for minutes.

Diddy's eyes were filled with tears from their ecstatic laugh, and as he looked into Dixie's eyes he saw they were wet with tears as well. It was as if he saw her for the first time in his life, as he noticed with some surprise how wonderfully pretty her eyes were. They were emerald green, like a new leaf in spring, with large pupils, black as a moonless night, and even complete with little sparkles of joy that could've been stars. Below them, the icy blue tint to her lips was rapidly turning into a tasty-looking red, and her smile was stunning. Her long, golden ponytail hung over her shoulders in a most appealing way. Diddy realised their faces were barely thirty centimetres apart and he could hardly resist the urge to kiss her. He had never felt anything like this before, neither for Dixie nor for anyone else. He blushed slightly, and his stomach felt funny, as if small Gnawties were walking around in it. Dixie raised one of her lovely eyebrows questioningly as he continued to stare in her face.

"Why were we laughing?" he asked, more to divert attention from his staring then out of curiosity.

"I don't know," Dixie answered (Diddy had never before noticed before how her voice sounded more lovely than the sound of a gentle breeze in a forest), "but it sure felt great."

"Maybe it was just out of delight that we had survived this adventure?"

Dixie thought for a moment. "Yes... But you know... The adventure hasn't really started yet, has it? Now we just know where Donkey Kong is. This whole business was asking for directions in a hard way, not the adventure, right?"

Diddy realised she was right, but it didn't feel like as much of a setback as he would have thought. "I suppose you're right. This adventure hasn't even started yet. We are still as close to saving DK as we were when we left the island."

Diddy didn't feel cold anymore, and the slight blueness on Dixies lips was gone completely now, but he didn't mention it, as he enjoyed being so close to Dixie (their faces were barely twenty centimeters apart now).

"I wonder what we'll find on Crocodile Isle?" Dixie asked.

"I dunno, but I'm not expecting a warm welcome..."

They were silent, just looking into each other's eyes. A slight blush appeared on Dixie's cheeks too now. Diddy could feel the rapid heartbeat in Dixie's left leg, which was against his right leg. Diddy could drown in those lovely eyes. He moved his head a little forward... Their faces were even closer now...

"Hey! If you two haven't got too cosy over there, you'd better come take a look at this!" Funky shouted from the cockpit, destroying the moment. They got up and looked out of the main window. In the middle of the ocean ahead of them a large island mainly consisting of a single mountain lay.

"If that overgrown canary told the truth," Funky said, "this dump should be Crocodile Isle."

As they approached, Diddy could see more details on the island. His view to the southside of the island was obstructed by smoke, probably from a volcano or factory. The westside of the island featured a port with water that looked rather green. The ships there didn't seem to be in very good condition, as most of them looked broken and wreckish, and a thick cluster of some sort of plant grew from the topsails of one of them. A steep pass led from the port to something he couldn't quite identify, but looked like some sort of city surrounded by weird hills with small flying _things_ around them. Above this plateau the mountain was densely forested. Near the top the forest ended and transited into bare snow through a thin layer of grass. At the top of the snowy peak, the snow turned into bare grey rock. But it was no mountain anymore. It was a castle. An enormous, terrifying keep, with large crocodillical gargoyles as decoration.

"Land on top of the castle, Funky." Diddy said, "We'll have too fight our way from there to DK."

The plane approached the castle from the south. Suddenly hundreds of cannons fired at them. Diddy, Dixie and Funky were tossed around the plane like pingpong balls in a jackhammer. Diddy's head hit a wall, and for a moment he wondered if the blow had made him hallucinate he was floating upside down in the middle of the plane, before realising he actually was. After a moment he realised what was going on: they were in freefall like astronauts in orbit, and as weightless as them. Only unlike them the Kongs would not keep missing the Earth in their fall.

Funky had managed to return to the cockpit to grab the controls, but it was too late: smoke that rose from the south-end of the mountain was all around them, and after a moment, an enormous crash followed. Diddy got up from the ground, and noticed both Dixie and Funky still moved. He looked out of the window and saw an unearthly sight: grey hills of ash covered the landscape, sometimes with rivers of glowing magma between them. Smoke was everywere, and the sky was dark as night, though it was late in the afternoon. The whole scene was illuminated by a dim, red light.

They had survived the crash, but they were crashed in the Crocodile Cauldron.

–

Diddy's fear returned to him as Funky told him just how bad the situation was. "Look, dude. About every system in this plane got damaged by that crash, and _that_ will take me a day to repair. But the main problem is in the crosshead-schnorzel. It has spritzeled all the way through, and that will take me a week to repair. So all in all, we're stuck down here for six days if things go unrealistically well, and after that we'd have to fly reeeeeal careful, as she would still be badly damaged. I don't think we can still save DK like this, so we should just focus on savin' ourselves. We don't have enough food or water to keep three apes alive for a week either."

Diddy's hope sank into his feet. Even if DK was still alive next week and Funky managed to get the plane flying and they hadn't thirsted to death by then, the cannons wouldn't have gone anywhere and could just shoot them down again. It seemed they were out of options. Dixie looked as disappointed as he felt. One more option sprang to Diddy's mind, but he was scared of it. _Just a__ct as if you are brave, and one day you will be brave..._

"We could try to free DK by foot." he uttered.

"That's crazy, dude!" Funky replied, "The mountain is enormous, and you'd have to pass right under the nose of all K. Rool's minions! If you can even get that far, which I doubt, as we're stuck in the middle of a volcano here!"

"It's dangerous," Dixie said, "but it sounds doable. We could get up there in two or three days, so we may still stand a good chance at saving DK. If we can get out of this place..."

"We'd just have to make sure to watch out." Diddy added, "If we sticked to the highest ash hills avoiding the magma lakes it might not be much warmer than a desert out there. There's got to be a way out of this place somewhere."

"You dudes can go if you wanna try, but I'm not leavin' my old girl behind. I'm gonna fix her here. There's enough food and water for one on board."

They agreed that Diddy and Dixie would try to save DK, while Funky would repair the plane. "Just a minute, dudes, I've got some gadgets for yeh," Funky searched between the junk in the plane, which had become even junkier in the crash, and found two wooden pistols. "I've made these shootahs especially for yeh. I call 'em peanut popguns. You put peanuts in, and the gun turns 'em into dangerous missiles!"

"Peanut popguns." Dixie said incredulously, "What's next, a coconut cannon?"

"Hey, that's not a bad idea!"

Diddy and Dixie each took a popgun, said goodbye to Funky and set out across the ash hills. The glow of the magma shedded a weird light on everything. It was a dim, red light which produced no shadows as the thick smoke that filled the cauldron diverted it in all directions. Though they had been walking quite fast when they left the plane, their pace slowed down considerably within minutes. They were soon exhausted from climbing hills made of loose dust and ash that would crumble and slide down with every step they took. Unfortunatly, the hills also contained splinters of stone, metal, and sand that had melted into glass.

But the ground wasn't what made walking through the Crocodile Cauldron so hard, though it certainly contributed. It was the air. If you could still call that 80 degrees hot mixture of smoke, dust, ash, sulfur and some oxygen _air_, that is. Though it wasn't hot enough to hurt or burn the Kongs, it was difficult to breathe and smelt worse than anything either of them had ever smelt, and probably worse then anything anyone who has never been caught in a burning chemical factory has ever smelt. Diddy and Dixie both coughed almost continuously, but in vain as they would just breathe the mess they got out of their lungs like this in again. The dust bit their lungs, and their throats were sore from the excrutiating coughing. Their hands and feet had painful cuts in them from the glass splinters, and their eyes itched from all the dust and ashes that ended up in them. Diddy tried not to focus on something else than these various sources of pain and looked around. All the light came from the glowing magma, as the Sun never penetrated this deep through the black smoke. There was no life, not even insects, and Diddy wondered if the Cauldron ever erupted. As they reached a spot were the smoke was somewhat less thick they saw a bizarre landscape of magma rivers, lakes and even geysers and falls.

Sometimes a breeze would blow in Cauldron, due to the difference in temperature between air close to the magma and air far from it. Sometimes, it would be "cold" breezes that could've been desert winds. But mostly, these breezes would come straight from the magma rivers, and would be so hot they hurt the Kongs strolling by, but they were too exhausted to try to run away from them. _If there were a hell_, Diddy thought, _it would sure look a lot like this place. _

–

After some time (They had lost all sense of time and had no idea how long they had been walking around in the constant semi-darkness) Dixie started coughing an enormous cough, which lasted almost thirty seconds and contained blooddrops from her throat. When the ravaging cough finally stopped, she lay down on the hill, gasping. "Wait... Diddy... I need to... rest" Her voice, which had sounded so lovely in the plane, sounded like a croak now.

Diddy felt a lot like resting too, but he knew they couldn't. "No, Dixie, we have to go..." he coughed. "...on. If we rest in here, we'll never get up again!" he heard his own voice sounded croaky too.

"But I can't..." she coughed again, "...go on! Just an hour... Please?"

"I'm sorry, but we really can't. If we..." he coughed, "...rest we risk falling asleep, and then we'll suffocate, or dry out, or just get flooded with magma. I'm sure we're almost at the end of this horrible place, and we can rest when we're outside. Come on, put your arm around me and I'll help you walk."

Diddy helped her get up and she placed her arm around his shoulders. In any other situation he would have quite liked this, but he was exhausted too, so they were moving very slowly now. Diddy did his best not to cough anymore, partially to avoid discouraging Dixie even further, but also because a drop of blood from his throat had accompanied his last cough, and his throat felt as if a lunatic had made him swallow a double-sided emary paper. After they'd walked through the Cauldron like this for a while, Diddy saw something through the black smoke in front of them and his hopes returned. "Look Dix, we've reached the end of the Cauldron!" he croaked. They walked to the wall and praised themselves lucky for reaching the exit. But when they reached the wall they realised they hadn't reached the exit: they had just reached the wall.

–

Diddy was getting desperate. They had followed the wall for some time now, trying to find the exit of the Cauldron. So far they hadn't been succesful. Dixie was, receiving new energy from her hope, not leaning on Diddy anymore, which made walking easier, though Diddy sort of missed her arm around his shoulders. The smoke wasn't as thick near the wall, and as there was no magma river near it was a bit cooler too, but they would still have to find an exit quickly if they wanted to live. Diddy was getting more and more afraid that they wouldn't make it. Finally there was a big hole in the wall ahead of them. But when they reached it they saw it wasn't the exit, but just the entrance to a cave. After taking a better look, it turned out to be a mine.

"We should go in here." Dixie was the first to speak.

"No. We'd better just go on and find the exit." Diddy said.

Dixie didn't agree with that. "Perhaps the exit is completely on the other side of the Cauldron, while this mine could lead us outside immediately. Besides, it's much cooler there and it has much cleaner air."

Diddy thought about this. If she was right, going in the tunnel would save them. Whereas if she was wrong, it probably wouldn't matter, for the Crocodile Cauldron was so big that they probably wouldn't reach the exit anyway. "All right. Let's get in the mine."

–

The air in the mine was remarkably clean, with just a little smoke and hardly any dust. Its temperature was a lot cooler than the temperature in the Cauldron, and felt like a very hot summerday. The ground of the mine was solid rock, instead of the loose dust hills. This made walking through the mine a relief after the horrible plains. Without the magma to light everything up it was very dark. They were still very thirsty but tried to ignore that inconvenience. They made sure not to enter any side-tunnels, or they would surely get lost. At one point, they heard a mumbling, echoed from far away. It grew louder and louder as they continued walking. And then, two kremlings carrying flashlights turned around the corner. The Kongs jumped into a sidetunnel they just walked past.  
"I'm tellin' ya, Krekker," one of the kremlings said, "we should watch out down here! I hear there's a horrible ape-like monster in here. It kould be hiding in one of these side-tunnels, overhearing us right now!"

"I know you think that, Kletskook," the other one answered, "you've told me eight times now, but there are no monsters, you're krazy."

"I'm not krazy!"

"Yes, you are!"

"Are not!"

"Are!"

"Aren't!"

"Are!"

Their argument went on like this while they walked past the tunnel Diddy and Dixie were hiding in. When they were gone, the Kongs came out of their hiding.

"Good to see the Kremlings practising their rhetorics." Dixie said in a deadpan that made Diddy giggle.

"I guess they still use this mine..." he said.

"I almost feel sorry for the kremlings for having to work in this infernal heat." Dixie said.

They walked on, more carefully now. The tunnels were gradually going up and the Kongs had to hide from passing Kremlings every now and then. Then they had reached the end of the tunnel and were looking into the Cauldron again.

A wave of hot, smelly air struck Diddy in the face. They had re-entered the Cauldron in a rather high spot and saw a great view of the Cauldron. To their left they saw the ash and dust hills they had traversed earlier. Ahead wide magma lakes and rivers dominated the view. But beyond the magma lakes there was a small plateau illumated by a bright green light.

"The exit!" both Kongs said at once, but their hopes sank as they realised they would have to cross the magmalakes.

"There are a few pathways between the lakes we could use." Dixie said as hopeful as she could, but she sounded like she knew that wouldn't work.

Diddy didn't bother saying that if they would use the small peninsulas of land she meant, they would both burn to crisps by the magma's proximity. Yet they walked down the hill to the plateau. It wasn't long before the excruciating coughing had returned in the polluted air. In this part of the Cauldron, the glass splinters were a lot more common than they were in the ash hills and the air was even hotter, as the magma was closer. As they reached the top of a particularly large hill, a grotesque view opened up before them.

A gigantic lake of magma lay just before them, numerous rivers filling and emptying it. Rocks floated in the lake, like icebergs on an antarctic sea, drifting around in the many currents of the lake. Sometimes, whole parts of the shore would crumble of and fall in the lake, immediatly melting or changing into a new 'iceberg'.

"So what do we do now?" Dixie asked in a hopeless voice, "We can't walk around it, it's way too big. Besides, we would just find other lakes. And without Funky's plane, we can't fly over it..."

Diddy said nothing. He thought about it for a while, looking at the lake. Then an idea came to mind: a crazy, horrifying idea. But one that might possibly have a chance of working.

"If we can't get around or over it," he said, sounding way more confident than he felt, "we'll have to go _through_ it. I wonder if we could get on one of these rocks and drift to the other side?"

"Yeah, great idea! What could _possibly_ go wrong?" Dixie replied cynically.

"I'm serious, Dix. We could try it..."

"Even on the largest of these rocks, we would be so close to the magma that we would burn to a cinder, and even _if_ we would find one high enough, it would constantly be melting on the downside. Not to mention the risk of us getting in the wrong current or the bloody thing turning over and 'dipping' us."

"What other option do we have? Even going back to Funky won't save us, as the plane doesn't have enough water for the three of us. This is the only viable route. We'll have to."

"But-"  
"Look!" Diddy interrupted her, as he saw a gigantic rock, or actually more like a small floating island, float off the magma river to their right to the lake. "Hurry, that's our best chance!"

They ran to a small cliff above the river, where the rock would soon pass. The temperature was horribly high here, causing the sweat in their furs to boil. As the rock passed they jumped, and landed on the rock. It was hot enough to bake an egg. They climbed to the top as well as they could, and there the temperature of the air was just below boiling and touching the rock was bearable for short periods.

"Now what?" Dixie asked.

"Now we stay here until we reach the other side."

Both of them had to constantly jump from one leg on the other in a weird dance, or their feet would get burned. The rock floated into the lake and within a minute, they were surrounded by magma. The rock slowly sank deeper. So far, they drifted in the right direction. They passed a bizarre but somewhat scenic fountain of magma. As they were getting used to their new situation, they heard a soft, buzzing noise. It grew louder and louder. On their right, the Kongs could see three flying _things_ through the smoke. When they came closer, Diddy realized with horror what they were.

"Zingers! Watch out!" The gigantic gigantic wasps covered in spikes had been among Donkey and Diddy's most dangerous enemies during their last adventure. And now, the Kongs had encountered them in the worst situation possible.

Diddy cartwheeled backwards to avoid the arms of one of them, while Dixie ducked to dodge another one. Fortunately Zingers weren't very agile, but in this situation, they had the _HUGE_ advantage of flight. Diddy jumped over one, and drew his peanut popgun. While the three zingers, who had all missed target, turned around, Diddy aimed at one of them and fired. Though peanuts are not very heavy ammunition, they can still do quite some damage with the speed the peanut popgun fired at, especially if it would hit their wings. Unfortunatly it didn't. The peanut hit the zinger in midair, causing it to flinch back, but not doing any apparent damage. The peanuts Dixie fired didn't hurt them either.

It looked like an inescapable situation: Dixie could keep hitting the zingers with her hair, and Diddy was quick enough to avoid them, and they used the popguns if these things didn't work, but they didn't stand much chance against the Zingers. Diddy fired at one of them who was quite a distance away, and when the Zinger flinched back he suddenly caught fire. Diddy thought this to be very weird until he saw the zinger had entered a stream of hot air, which came directly from the 1500 degrees hot magma. The remains of the Zinger were blown up by the hot air and then fell into the magma. _One down, two to go..._

The Zingers realised what had happened to their collegue, and they flew around slower and more carefully now. This made it much easier to dodge their attacks, but they were still too fast to do accurate aiming. Then they stopped attacking at all and just flew around the rock. _They're up to something..._ Diddy thought, but he couldn't think of anything. While keeping an eye on both Zingers circling the rock, he looked around. They were still encircled by magma, but in one direction he could see the smoke, which hung only above land, so they were approaching land. At that moment, both Zingers attacked at once. Diddy was distracted by the hope of land and didn't notice the Zinger attacking until the last moment, and he made a weird, half twisting, jump to dodge him. This prevented him from getting impaled on the Zinger's spikes, but the front legs of the Zinger grabbed his shoulders, and he twisted into all kinds of bends to dodge the stabs of its main stinger. Diddy banged his right fist on the Zinger's head as hard as he could, as he rolled over the rock with the it. As they fought apocrite and ape rolled down the rock, towards the magma. They managed to stop themselves but they were so close to the magma that Diddy's fur almost caught fire. Though the situation looked desperate, Diddy had an idea. He hammered his fist as hard as he could on the Zinger's front legs that were holding his shoulders. The Zinger didn't expect this and let his shoulders go for a moment as Diddy used his legs to push the creature away as hard as he could. The Zinger tumbled down, and reached the magma before it had a chance to open its wings. Diddy didn't stay to watch his enemy die, but immediately climbed up the rock to help Dixie and to move away from the magma. The climbing was very difficult, as the rock was almost vertical here and was hot enough to blister his hands. When he reached the top of the rock, he saw the zinger flying very close to Dixie trying to stab her. Diddy ran at them and collided with the zinger, careful not to hit its spikes. The zinger was thrown back, above the magma. It tried to recover his balance and was knocked back by two salvos of peanuts from the Kongs' popguns, into a magma fountain.

To Diddy's surprise and joy, Dixie embraced him. He looked at her and saw tears in her lovely eyes.

"I thought I would never see you again..." she cried, "When you and that zinger rolled down, I thought you were dead."

Diddy put his arms around her. "I'm not going to today, Dix. And neither will you. I promise you we will find a way out of this horrible place." Tears appeared in Diddy's eyes as well. They looked into each other's eyes and Diddy drowned in her lovely emerald ones. She smiled and a massive tremble went through the rock, and it started turning over slowly (There was no causal relationship between these events). The monkeys let go of each other.

"We have to keep on the highest point, whatever happens!" Dixie said. They were nearing the land now and would have to stay alive for a few more minutes. The rock rapidly grew hotter, since the parts that were now at the top had been close to the magma a minute ago. The land was barely fifty metres away now, but the rock was glowing red-hot and the Kongs' feet hurt. A minute later, they stood on a ridge on the side of the rock hanging above the magma. _Ten more metres..._ Diddy thought, but the rock was still turning, and they would be pushed of their ridge in a few moments by the wall that was coming forward. When he couldn't keep his balance anymore, Diddy said "Jump!" and he jumped to the land. He just made it, and a second later, Dixie landed next to him. They ran away from the lake since they had seen parts of the shore crumble of and fall in the magma. They stopped running soon, as the horrible smoke polluted their lungs once again and the temperature was still way to high to be healthy. They walked to the plateau.

Dixie looked at her peanut popgun. "I guess these really work."

"Funky may be a bit weird, but he certainly knows his stuff." Diddy said.

"You look worried, Diddy. What's wrong?" Dixie asked. "Apart from the environmental factors here, I mean." She added.

"Well, after DK and I killed Queen B., the zinger society fell into chaos, and they were busier killing one another then killing us. Their reappearance might mean they found a new queen. That might be very dangerous."

"I certainly wouldn't like meeting more- Look! Another mine!" she pointed, and Diddy could see it too through the thick smoke. When they neared it they saw this mine had a track with a minecart.

"I think our car has arrived." Diddy said, "Let's step in."

The Kongs climbed into the minecart. Diddy, who had ridden minecarts in the Monkey Mines and the Chimp Caverns, pulled the lever that would take the cart off the brake. The minecart slowly accelerated as the mine slowly went down. Then, all of a sudden, the mine steeped, and the cart accelerated. Diddy used the braking lever to keep it under control. Diddy's cap flew off, and if Dixie hadn't caught it in a lightning-fast reaction, it would've been lost. The track was almost horizontal once again, and Diddy stopped braking and turned to Dixie.

"Thanks for catching my cap, Dix. Without you it'd-" He was interrupted by a scream from her and the turning of his own stomach as the track steeped again. As Diddy pulled the braking lever like a leverpulling idiot, the walls and floor around them had disappeared, as they had entered a huge hall which contained (apparently) just the track and poles on which it rested. While Diddy kept pulling the lever, Dixie constantly had to move from left to right and back to prevent the minecart from falling from the track in the turns. As the track became horizontal again, Diddy had managed to reduce the cart's speed to a somewhat safe speed and stopped pulling the lever again. This time, neither of the monkeys talked, both staying alert to make sure they wouldn't be surprised by a new slope, but they couldn't see very far in the dark hall. The track started turning again, and both had to brace themselves.

After the turns, a new piece of straight track followed, and the Kongs relaxed. But then, suddenly, the tracks sloped down so steeply they were nearly going vertical, and Diddy was almost knocked out of the minecart. He pulled the lever with all his strength, and it broke off. Then, in the momentary panic that followed, he realised Dixie was screaming. He turned around, and saw she had fallen out of the minecart and desperately clung to its side.

"Dixie!" He shouted, and extended his arm to help her, but they had reached a horizontal track again. The shock made Dixie lose grip of the minecart, but Diddy managed to grab her hand just before she was gone. He tried to pull her back into the cart, but lacked the strength.

"Please don't let go!" Dixie cried, while Diddy desperatly tried to save her and himself by using his spare hand to hold the minecart. Both their hands were sweaty, making it hard to keep a good grip.

Diddy hung half out of the cart himself by now, and with each turn the cart made, he lost more grip. The cart made a quick turn and Diddy fell out of the cart. He kept holding Dixie's hand in freefall and then, when he looked into her eyes (for the last time, he thought), he saw a flash of green in the corner of his eye. The next moment he was no longer weightless. He looked up and saw Squawk, a green parrot that had helped DK and himself on their last adventure.  
"You should take more care, Diddy!" The parrot said, "Next time I might not happen to be around when you mess things up!"

Diddy laughed. "You didn't just 'happen' to be around, Squawk! What would a parrot be doing in a mine inside a volcano? By the way, could you land somewhere? The hand Dixie's hanging on is starting to hurt."

"Alright, I was searching you two. Funky told me you would be looking for the exit of the Cauldron."

Squawk landed on a ledge and grabbed each Kong with one talon, while Dixie asked: "How's Funky doing?"

"He seemed to be alright two hours ago." Squawks answered as he started flying again, "The plane carries water to cool the engines, so I think he can make it."

"Where are you taking us, by the way?" Diddy asked.

"To reach the exit of the Cauldron, you have to go all the way up this mineshaft. You can get there either by flight or by those mad suicide-carts you just fell out of. I thought you might prefer flying." Squawks replied, "I'll take you to the top of this shaft. From there, you'll only have to walk through some tunnels and cross a small dustplain."

As they were getting higher in the shaft, the smoke was less thick and Diddy could see the walls of the shaft. The shaft was some hundred metres wide, yet it had seemed much larger than that when they were in the minecart. The shaft was incredibly high, at least a kilometre, and mining tunnels ended up in it.

–

Fifteen minutes later they had reached the top of the shaft. Squawk landed in the entrance of a mine. "You just have to walk through this tunnel. The Kremlings don't use it anymore, so you won't meet them. The exit's at the end of it. Good luck!" he said as he flew down again.

The Kongs walked through the tunnel without talking. Though it wasn't remotely as hot as the plains here, it had been hours since either of the Kongs had drank anything and their throats were very painful now. Diddy hoped there would be water near the exit. _I __hope we don't end up in a desert or something..._ Then they had reached the end of the mine. Before them was a plain like the others they had crossed, only much smaller and without magma. On the other side was the exit of the cauldron, a large arch through which a lovely greenish light shone. _We made it!_, he thought. They were at the highest point of the Crocodile Cauldron, and the smoke above was thin enough here that the sun was visible through it, though it looked more like the moon through all the smoke.  
"You were right," Dixie smiled, "we _have_ found a way out." She ran to the exit, not planning on spending another minute in the heat of the Crododile Cauldron.

Diddy didn't want to run in the heat, however, so he just walked to the exit. Dixie had almost reached the exit and Diddy neared the middle of the plain when the ground under Diddy's feet suddenly exploded. He flinched back as the plain in front of him fell into pieces into the magma, a metre lower. Diddy ran back, hoping Dixie would be alright. He looked back and saw the plain had turned into a magmalake, with land only near the walls. Dixie was alright, but she was on a small bit of land at the other wall, and the path towards the exit was a ridge, not even half a metre wide. Diddy himself was completly cut off from the exit by the magma. In the middle of the steaming lake, a sword rose out of the magma. It was grey, twice the size of Diddy, and had a handle shaped like a skull with crossbones, complete with red glowing eyes. It was not until then that Diddy noticed the small, flaming creature that wielded the sword. If the situation weren't so dangerous, Diddy would probably have laughed at the silly sight of the tiny creature wielding the huge sword. But Kleever was approaching rapidly. He ran left to escape into the tunnel, but Kleever was quicker and he slashed his sword in the ground in front of him, collapsing it into the magma, so Diddy couldn't escape anymore.

Fear struck, and he wanted to surrender to the thing, but managed to suppress his fear. As Kleever neared him, he lifted one of the large stones that lay about after the ground had exploded, and when Kleever slashed his sword at him he threw it at the blade. Much to his surprise, he was still alive. The stone had knocked Kleever back, and the creature looked confused. Diddy heard Dixie cheer on the other side of the lake.

Kleever soon regained his control, and he returned to Diddy. Diddy lifted another rock, but Kleever didn't directly attack him. He started slashing his sword in the land on either side of Diddy, thus limiting his movement. When Diddy threw the rock at him, he dodged it and rapidly turned to chop Diddy in pieces. But Diddy was quicker, and again, he hit Kleever with another rock. The flamy creature fell apart and the sword sank into the magma.

_Now how am I going to cross this lake?_ he thought. He saw Dixie was now cautiously walking over the thin ridge towards the exit. When she was halfway, the sword suddenly rose from the magma on its own, no longer wielded by the flaming creature. Diddy sought another rock, but Kleever wasn't coming to him. He was flying to Dixie. Diddy felt utterly powerless before he noticed all the rocks floating in the magma.

He knew it would probably mean his end, but he jumped from the land onto one of the floating rocks. As he touched the rock, he screamed in pain as the heat was unbearable and his feet felt like they were on fire, and he jumped to the next rock immediately. It was incredibly painful for his feet, but he continued jumping the rocks. Meanwhile, Kleever had reached Dixie, and she _just_ managed to dodge his first strike. But while Kleever aimed for his second strike, Diddy had reached him, and he jumped for Kleever's handle.

Diddy grabbed the handle and held on, hanging above the magma. Kleever went crazy. He slahsed violently in all directions as he floated away from the wall, trying to hit Diddy, who held on to the handle. As Kleever made a mighty swing his handle came off, and Diddy was launched high into the smoky sky holding it. He looked back down and saw the blade shatter into a million tiny pieces through the thick smoke.

–

READERS'S QUESTIONS:

Manax of Konoha:

Q: What was it that Dixie had to retreave?

A: You'll see.


	4. The Quaggy Krem Quay

Chapter Four: The Quaggy Krem Quay

Diddy soared through thick layers of smoke, high up into the sky. As he flew higher, temperatures dropped and the air got cleaner until there was no smoke around him anymore. Diddy was struck by a stunning view. The Sun, just rising from the horizon, hurt his eyes with its brightness. The air was breathable at last, and felt very cold after the infernal heat of the Cauldron. The red and grey shades of the Crocodile Cauldron had been replaced by green and blue. Green and blue moving towards him at high speed. He realised he had stopped moving up a while ago and was now falling down rapidly. He prepared himself for the bone-shattering impact, but only a massive splash followed.

He found himself in lovely, cool and clean water, and drank happily from it as he swam back to the surface. The water tasted more delightful than the best banana milkshake and soothed his tormented throat. As he reached the surface of the water he drank more and swam around. The water cooled him down, quenched his thirst, and soothed his painful throat and feet.

"Diddy? Are you alright?" Dixie called apprehensively.

"I'm here, Dix! Look where I landed!" Diddy called back. When Dixie saw him, she laughed.

"You lucky bastard."

She dived into the water. It took a while before she surfaced again, greedily drinking the delightful water. Diddy, whose euphoria at finding water had ebbed enough for him to actually take a look around now, noticed they were swimming in a small, dirty pool instead of the clean, clear water he'd thought it was. _Well, water is water after all. We shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. _Diddy thought.

As he swam through the water, something tugged on his left foot. He tried to escape its grasp, but it pulled him underwater. It let go of his foot just as he was starting to panic a moment later. He reached the surface and looked around fearfully to warn Dixie to get out of the water, but she was nowhere to be found. A moment later, she surfaced next to him, giggling as she saw his face.

"Hilarious." Diddy said annoyed.

"You should've seen your face." Dixie giggled.

"Let's see how well _you_ like that, hmm?" Diddy said as he dived underwater and tried to grab her feet. She was surprisingly hard to get a hold of though due to the dirty water blocking his view. He couldn't find her underwater and saw she had swam to the other shore of the pool when he resurfaced.

"I'm over here!" She laughed.

Diddy swam into the shallow water were she was and splashed her with water. "Who's laughing now?"

She jumped at him and pushed his head underwater. "I still am." She said as she allowed him to get his head above water.

Both Kongs blushed a deep red as they realised just how close they were to each other, Dixie lying on top of Diddy in the shallow water. Diddy wasn't sure what to say anymore.

"Uh... I-I guess we should walk on." He said as they got up from the water rather awkwardly, avoiding eye contact. "We spent twelve hours in the Crocodile Cauldron, so DK may not have much time left."

"Sure!" Dixie said, apparently glad for the new subject, "Except I really need some sleep. We won't help DK much if we fight like two slices of white bread because we are tired."

"True. But we won't help him much either if we're too late..." He thought for a while, "I've got an idea: if you get on my back, you can sleep for a few hours while I walk. Later, we can swap so I can get some sleep while you walk on."

"Do you think you could carry me for that long?" Dixie asked.

"I think so. After all, you're- never mind." He had been about to compliment her on her slender body, but quickly decided against it.

"We'll give it a try then."

Dixie climbed on Diddy's back. She wasn't very heavy, and Diddy soon got used to the extra weight as he walked through the swamps. Dixie quickly fell asleep on his back.

The first thing Diddy noticed about the Krem Quay was the life around him. Grasshoppers and birds sang in the plants, salamanders and frogs hid underwater when they approached, insects buzzed, and birds flew over. Green plants were everywhere. It was a large contrast with the Crocodile Cauldron, which was completely lifeless.

Yet after a while the Quay started to bore Diddy. The same green-greyish mud lay everywhere and the same plants grew everywhere. Once the novelty of the sounds of animals had worn off they got as stale as the landscape. The only way to even know he wasn't walking in circles was because he walked straight for the precipice far ahead. The precipice seperated the low Krem Quay from the pass to the higher parts of the mountain, so they would have to climb it to get out of the Quay later. Diddy's feet sank away into the soft mud a few centimetres with every step he took, adding to his fatigue. He walked on for a few hours, until his eyes almost fell shut on their own. He woke Dixie up and got on her back. He fell asleep within a minute.

–

As Dixie walked through the stale Krem Quay, her thoughts quickly began to wander. She thought about how awkward the fun she and Diddy had been having in the water that morning had suddenly become. She wondered what Diddy would have done if she'd kissed him right there. Would he have reciprocated the kiss, would he have friendily rebuffed her, or would he have withdrawn from her kiss in disgust? She wasn't sure if he was attracted to her or not. He had blushed deeply that morning and seemed rather mesmerised by her in the plane, but apart from those incidents he hadn't given a single hint of being attracted to her.

She wasn't quite sure when she had started thinking of Diddy as more than just a friend herself. She had admired his intelligence, courage, kindness, and cute looks from the day they'd met, but she couldn't pinpoint exactly when those feelings had turned into romantic attraction towards him.

Regardless of what his feelings towards her were, Dixie decided the matter would have to wait until they were back on DK Isle. She couldn't afford being distracted or any tensions that might arise between them if she told him while they were on Crocodile Island.

As afternoon turned to evening she approached the edge of the Krem Quay. The Sun hang low above a greenish sea in the west while the steep wall of rock and a number of wreckish ships dominated the view in front. They were stuck in the mud, next to some broken wooden walkways. Dixie woke Diddy up.

"To go any further, we'll have to find a way to get up." Dixie explained to him. "I think we'd best try to climb in the mast of the largest ship here. There's some kind of plant growing over its top sails that also hangs over the precipice. We could use it to climb further."

"I think you're right." Diddy looked at the ships, "We'll have to find a hole below the waterline to get in, though."

The ships' boughs were about ten metres high and too smooth to climb, so he was probably right. Diddy and Dixie swam in the greenish seawater around the largest ship looking for holes underwater. After a while Dixie found a hole underwater and called to Diddy:

"Diddy, I found a way in!"

Diddy came swimming around the ship.

"There's a hole in the hull," Dixie said when Diddy had reached her, "four metres down. I think we can both swim through it."

"I just hope we'll quickly reach air... I don't think we can count on Enguarde to save us this time."

They took a deep breath and swam down, Diddy following Dixie. They swam though the large hole in the ship's bough. Inside the ship, there was completely no light, and they had to hold hands as they swam to avoid losing each other. After a minute in the dark, they reached a pocket of air at the ceiling. Both paused for a while, treading water. In the pitch-black darkness Dixie couldn't see Diddy at all, though he was close. After pausing for a minute, they swam until they reached another pocket of air. At this point, there was a light in the distance, so they quickly continued swimming. After little more then a minute, they reached the surface, and after resting for a moment wanted to walk to the deck. But there was a big green snake wrapped around them.

"SSSssssssht!" the snake said, "Don't ssscream, or the kremlingsss will hear you."

"Go away!" Diddy said.

"I want to help you. I have followed you sssinccce you entered the Krem Quay. The deck of the ssship isss filled with kremlingsss. Thisss ssship isss their headquartersss in the Quay."

"Oh," Diddy said dissapointedly, "we didn't know that. Are the other ships any better?"

"Yesss, but they are too sssmall for you to reach the pass. You'll have to climb in thisss ssship'sss massst. But I can help you get passst the Kremlingsss."

"You?" Dixie asked, "how would you help us?"

"Jussst climb on my back," the snake said as he twisted his body into a coil shape. "Braccce yourssselvesss. By the way, my name isss Rattly."

The Kongs climbed on Rattly's back, and he made a HUGE jump, rocketing himself and the Kongs up high above the deck. The Kremlings, most of whom were playing cards, shouted and ran at them.

With another huge jump Rattly jumped on one of the Kremlings, knocking him out, and jumped again before the others could react. A boom sounded as a Kremling fired a cannon at them. It missed them, though judging from the screams behind it had hit some Kremlings. Rattly said, as he jumped again:

"I'll drop you off at the massst, and will then attempt to dissstract them long enough that you can climb up undisssturbed."

With the next jump he landed at the mast. Diddy and Dixie jumped off his back and started climbing, after thanking Rattly. No kremlings followed them and no cannonballs were fired either.

–

Dixie climbed in the thick branches of the huge bramble plants that grew from the mountain, carefully avoiding their sharp thorns. The largest branches were quite harmless, as they only had a few, huge spikes that were easily avoided. The thinner branches had much more thorns, and got very annoying after a while. A lot of spikeless plants, quite similar to long green ropes hung around too, and the Kongs mostly used those for climbing around. When they'd first entered the bramble forest, the view over the Krem Quay had been amazing, but now night had fallen and it was too dark to see anything past the plants blocking the view. They'd already passed the top of the precipice and were now travelling horizontally, looking for a way down.

An owl hooted somewhere, and grasshoppers chirped. The Moon shone through the plants, creating a weird but pretty patchwork of light and shadows everywhere. A sweet flowery smell filled the air.

"I think I like this place." Dixie sighed. "It's quite pretty."

Diddy giggled. "You changed your opinion quickly. I think it was just ten minutes ago that you were cursing these thorns stinging you and getting in your hair."

"Yeah, I know, but just look at the Moon shining through the plants like that. And smell that sweet smell, and tell me honestly you don't like this place."

"I like it. I'm just saying you don't like it as much as you think right now."

Dixie felt completely relaxed by the soothing environment. "How could I not like it? It's such a lovely place. It's a shame we didn't bring our guitars, as- YEOWCH! Those bloody thorns!" she screamed in fury as a branch with particularly sharp thorns made a long cut in her arm, "What are these awful plants hoping to achieve by growing like that? I hope someone torches this miserable hellhole of a place!"

Diddy laughed. "That was quicker than I expected."

"Oh, shut up." Dixie snapped, "Just- Hey, look at those plants!" she saw a few thick, thornless plants that hung down below the thorns, all the way to the ground.

"If we can get through all the plants, we could climb down using those."

The Kongs slowly made their way down, through the thorny "floor". Dixie could feel dozens of thorns ruining her hair and scratching her skin. After struggling through the thorns, she finally reached the plant. While Diddy was still struggling to get through the thorns, she slowly climbed down. About thirtyy metres down she landed on the ground of the pass, followed shortly after by Diddy. The ground of the pass was rocky and dry, a welcome change after the soft mud of the Quay. As they walked on the pass the steep mountain was on their right. On their left the dark nightly sea stretched out a couple of hundred metres lower. The pass soon grew thinner and thinner, until it was only two metres wide. It made a few sharp turns around the mountain. After one of these turns they suddenly stood eye to knee with a huge grey Kremling wielding a club.

"Hello little monkeys!" the Kremling said, "Me be Kudgel! Me gonna smash, bash and mash ye!"

He swung his huge club at them, but the Kongs had already jumped back.

"AARGH!" Kudgel roared, "You musn't dodge me klub!"

Kudgel took a few more swings at them, but kept missing. The Kongs shot a few rounds of peanuts at him with their popguns, but it only served to make him angry. He tried to hit them again, and Dixie jumped as high as she could and floated over him using her hair. She managed to just dodge Kudgel trying to hit her.

Fighting in two directions quickly confused Kudgel, so he didn't pay any attention to Dixie, solely focusing on Diddy. As he tried to hit Diddy, Dixie grabbed a rock from the ground, snuck up on him and jumped on his shoulders. She hit his head with the rock, and Kudgel screamed and swung his club at her. She jumped off his neck just in time and the club hit his head with a nauseating crunch. He fell over, into the sea deep below.


	5. A Kiss in Krazy Kremland

Chapter Five: A Kiss in Krazy Kremland

"...So Donkey Kong's father's name was Donkey Kong _Junior_, and _his _father, Cranky Kong, used to be called Donkey Kong too?" Dixie asked incredulously.

"Yes, that's right." Diddy answered, sensing where the conversation was going.

"So... Doesn't that strike you as a _little _odd? How did they end up with their names like that?" she asked.

"It's a long story." Diddy sighed. _And one I've had to tell countless times before. _He added mentally.

"It'll be a while before we reach the end of the pass, so that's no excuse."

"Very well then," Diddy sighed, "I'll tell you." Diddy explained it to her as they continued on the thin, winding pass that took them higher and higher. The pass turned sharply landward after a while, leading them away from the sea (which was quite a long way down by now). In the distance a couple of weird hills entered their view. The pass seemed to be heading straight for the hills, so they would probably have to find a way around them as they looked to steep to climb. In fact, they were steeper then any hill either Kong had ever seen, and bizarrely symmetrical and round. As they approached the hills, horizontal stripes and things erratically flying around them became visible. Some sort of soft buzzing noise emitted from the hills.

"I really didn't expect it," Dixie said when Diddy finished his explanation, "But those names actually make sense now that you have explained it. In fact t- Hey, do you smell that?"

Diddy sniffed the air. "Hmm, that's a weird smell... Kind of sweetish. What could possibly emit such an odour here?" He pondered.

As they approached the strange hills, both the smell and the buzzing grew more prominent. Diddy took a good look at the flying things, and stopped walking as he realised with shock what they were. Dixie turned around, one eyebrow raised quizzically. "What's wrong?"

"Dix, take a good look at those flying things."

She squinted as she looked at them, and then turned around with a scared expression on her face as she realised they were heading straight for a Zinger hive.

–

Diddy carefully looked over the rock he and Dixie had positioned themselves behind. They had managed to sneak very close to the hive without being spotted by the Zingers, and now they were hiding behind this rock to avoid detection while they looked for a way around the hives. But it was looking very much like there wasn't any. The hives completely blocked the pass and were way too steep and high to climb. The rock walls on both sides were very smooth too, and they'd be spotted by the Zingers within minutes even if they found some way to climb them.

"Well?" Dixie whispered, "Do you see a way around?"

Diddy hid back behind the rock. "No. I don't think we can get around them."

They both knew what the only alternative was, and were very afraid of that option. An intense wave of fear hit Diddy, even stronger than the fear you'd expect a hive the size of a small mountain filled with gigantic wasps to produce in any sane individual. _We _can't _go through them, _he thought, _We _can't_. _In his mind he saw a Zinger, and shivered as he pictured the twitchy, segented legs, the lethal spikes covering most of its body, the cold black eyes, and the swollen insectoid body.

Then he thought of his friend, at K. Rool's mercy._ I can't just give up and abandon DK._

_But what about myself? And Dixie? If we go in there, we will surely die most gruesome deaths. If we're __dead, we can't save him._

He looked at Dixie, and saw the same dread in her lovely eyes. _How could I ask her to sacrifice her life for a minor chance to save someone she hardly even knows? No, we must turn back._

_What am I thinking? We can't turn back, we must go on! We're DK's only hope._

_I can't go on, I'm a coward._

_I may be a coward, but I can at least pretend to be brave._

He tried to swallow his fear. "Dixie, I will try to sneak in. Turn back and wait for Funky to pick you up in the Krem Quay."

The dread in her eyes made place for angry determination. "Oh, you're not going in there alone. We're going on together or not at all. I told you: you're my best friend, I'm not letting you plunge yourself into danger alone."

Diddy started to protest, but she cut him off. "Look, if you really want us to seperate, then so be it. But I'll be going on to save Donkey Kong anyway. I think our chances are better if we stick together. And we're not getting anywhere with just sitting here either." She came out of hiding and started sneaking to the hive. Grumbling and very scared, but deep down somewhat thankful that he wouldn't have to enter the hive alone, Diddy followed her. The entrance of the nest was a gigantic hole that had Zingers flying in and out of it all the time. They'd have to be extremely stealthy to sneak in through that. The buzzing was very loud now and the smell of honey was overpowering. Dixie pointed to the side of the nest.

"Look, Diddy, there's a small hole in the side of the nest. I think we can sneak in there." They changed direction to the smaller hole.

When they reached the hole, they should have just gone in. But they couldn't. They were overpowered with fear. The sense of dread Diddy had felt earlier was so much worse here on the Zingers' doorstep. He tried to lift his foot to walk inside, but the fear paralised, every fibre in his body wanted to go in the other direction. Next to him, Dixie had stopped in place too, gripped by fear. Diddy wanted to turn around and run for his life more than anything. _Coward, _he thought, _don't let the fear grip you. Pretend to be brave and go in! _He took Dixie's hand, both to give him more courage to go in, and to support Dixie to overcome her own fear. They looked in each other's eyes, nodded, and slowly entered the hive.

–

It wasn't long before they came to hate the sticky honeyfilled corridors of the zingers as much as they had hated the boiling-hot ashplains of the Crocodile Cauldron. Honey was everywhere: honey dripping from the strangely hexangular walls, honey sticking to the ceiling, and knee-deep honey on the floors. Inside the hive the buzzing wasn't as loud as outside, but the honey's stench was terrible. Normally, Diddy quite liked the sweet smell of honey, but this was way too much of a good thing. The walls on all sides consisted of large hexagons. Every hexagon was connected to two other hexagons in each of their six corners. Some hexagons were an opaque orange, while others were semi-transparant. Behind some of the semi-transparant hexagons, disgusting wormlike larvae were visible. Some others harboured small Zingers. As the Kongs walked by, the disgusting larvae and young Zingers would press themselves against the wall of their hexagonal brooding chambers, trying to get as near to them as possible. Both Kongs walked in a terrified silence. At one point Diddy heard the buzzing get louder.

"Zingers! Get down!"

The Kong dropped to the floor and hid in the thick layer of honey, hoping the Zingers wouldn't see them. Diddy heard the sound of a group of Zingers flying over their heads. Between the buzzing he heard muffled screams. He cautiously raised his head a bit so he could see what was going on, and saw how a group of five Zingers had stopped pretty close to them. One of them opened a hexagon on the wall ahead with a gross larva behind it while another one was clutched a badly wounded animal in its legs. They were too far away to discern what kind of animal it was. As the Zinger opened hexagonal panel the other threw the animal inside. Its screams for help were suddenly cut off as the horriffic larva shredded it to pieces and ate it as the honey around the hexagon slowly turned orange-red. The Zingers closed the hexagon and flew away, as the Kongs sat up, nauseous and severely shocked by what they had just witnessed.

"We _have _to get out of here..." Diddy muttered.

The Kongs continued through the horrible yellow tunnels in silence. They had to hide from passing Zingers several times, but fortunately didn't witness the feeding of any more larvae. Sometimes they heard faint screams coming from far away, but they were always cut off soon. At last, after what seemed like an eternity, they reached another hole in the wall. They climbed through it and were outside once again. Diddy wanted to shout, dance and sing with joy for making it through the tunnels, but as that would surely get the Zingers to notice them, he just embraced Dixie instead.

"That was terrible." She said, still trembling. "But we made it." She added with a little smile.

As they continued on the past they noticed was afternoon now, while the sun hadn't even risen when they had entered the hive. It meant getting through the hive had taken them about 12 hours. Fortunately it rained, the rain washing most of the honey off of them, but both of them were still very sticky, and Dixie's formerly beautiful hair looked like straw. As they reached the end of the pass they came in sight of the lights they had seen earlier, but it wasn't a city as they'd thought: it was an amusement park.

–

Disguised as a Kremling the Kongs walked through Krazy Kremland. Their disguise consisted of a long coat and two palm leaves. They had found the coat lying around between the pass' end and Krazy Kremland. Judging from the bloodstains on it, its unlucky previous owner had been captured by the Zingers. Diddy sat on Dixie's back to match the height of a Kremling better, and to his arms they had bound two large leaves from a palm tree. If Diddy stretched his arms out in front of him, they looked like crocodile snout together. Surprisingly, no one had noticed they were not really a cloaked Kremling, as it had to be among the worst disguises ever devised. By looking between the "jaws", Diddy could see in front of him but Dixie couldn't (as the coat had a zipper instead of buttons) so he had to whisper instructions to her on how to walk, which often led to them almost walking into stuff or moving in different directions than the one the "jaws" were facing. Dixie's hands were stuck through the coat's sleeves, as Diddy's were needed to operate the "jaws".

Krazy Kremland was a bizarre place. Most of the theme park was located in a huge cavern, and thus in an eternal night. Almost every building was covered in lights though, lighting the place up like a christmas tree. It was also a rather demented place, for the simple reason that any place where hundreds of semi-drunk Kremlings wander around quickly degrades. Among Krazy Kremland's attractions were several roller-coasters, not all of which were always completely lethal to all those who rode them, a shooting range where the contestants won prizes if they hit each other, a house of mirrors were the mirrors were made of paper-thin glass, causing many a Kremling to leave it bloodied and covered in shards, a rig called "hit the funny clown" where one had to hit a mime by shooting meringue pies with miniature anchors hidden in them from a cannon, and a fortune teller who foretold the death of anyone who visited her (probably accurately given the nature of the other attractions in the park). The Kongs wandered around in amazement and disgust (well, Dixie did the wandering around, while Diddy was amazed and disgusted).

Diddy did his best to describe it all to Dixie, but she didn't seem very impressed.

"Look, Diddy, I'm sure it's as grotesque as you say, but my feet are very tired. We've been walking without a break since we left the Crocodile Cauldron yesterday morning. Can you find some place were we can sit down for a while?"

Diddy looked around. It seemed no one had bothered placing any benches or other resting places outside, so the choice was between the roller coasters and a bar. Since going on the roller coasters was probably suicide, Diddy guided Dixie to a bar.

It was packed full of Kremlings, most of whom were either playing cards, drinking, or both. While those outside seemed only semi-drunk, these were completely drunk. Diddy guided Dixie to a seat at the bar, were she sat on one of the stools, Diddy still on her back. It wasn't long before the fat crocodile behind the bar moved their way. "Yeah, what'll it be?"

"Two glasses of banana juice, please." Diddy ordered, while moving the "jaws" with his hands. He hoped it didn't look too much like he was lip-synced.

The barkeep laughed. "Banana juice? Never heard anyone order that before! We don't got it."

"Erm, well, how about coconut- I mean kokonut juice?"

"Don't got that either. The only fruit juice we have is grapefruit juice."

_I had a feeling you were going to say that, _Diddy thought, "No, I don't like grapefruit. What other drink can you suggest?"

"Well, all the young Kremlings are drinking Grog XD these days."

That didn't sound too bad. "What's in it?"

"Grog XD is a sekret mixture which kontains one or more of the following ingredients: kerosene, propylene glykol, artificial sweeteners, sulphurik acid, rum, acetone, red dye number 2, SKUMM, aksle grease, battery acid, and pepperoni."

"Um... No, thanks. Kerosene tends to keep me up at night. Just two glasses of water please."

"Two?"

"Yes, I'm very thirsty. Had a long run on the shooting range."

The barkeep handed Dixie the two glasses of water. She whispered to Diddy "Erm, Diddy? How are we going to drink these?"

He hadn't thought about that. "Just put your glass in the pocket and smuggle it into the coat when no one watches. I'll guide your other hand with my glass to my mouth. Move it up."

Dixie lifted the glass up way too far, above Diddy's head, and several Kremlings turned around to look at them. "Down, down."

Now the glass was roughly in front of the "jaws". Diddy opened them and whispered "Okay, now move the glass backwards slowly."

Dixie did so and moved the glass between the "jaws", spilling only a little, and eventually got close enough to his head for Diddy to drink the water. "Okay, thanks, you can put the glass back on the bar."

Dixie moved the glass away from the "jaws", and put it with a loud bang on the bar, causing a crack to appear in it. "Oops, I thought it would be lower." She whispered apologetically.

That's when Diddy noticed the whole bar had gone silent and was watching them. _For them it must look like I proposed a toast, then proceeded to put the glass all the way into my throat before drinking it, and tried to smash it then, all the while whispering to myself._ "Um... I've got the palsy..." Diddy muttered, hoping they'd accept such a weak excuse. After a while, most of them continued drinking and playing cards.

The crocodile to their left sniffed the air. "Hey, do you smell that? Smells like honey." He said.

Diddy stammered, "Uh, yeah, I think that's just that guy next to you."

The crocodile Diddy had indicated, who had seemed to be fast asleep, suddenly stood up. "YOU SAYING I SMELL?" he shouted, and threw his empty bottle at Diddy's head. Diddy barely dodged it and it hit a Kremling sitting a bit further down the bar, who immediately stood up and threw his chair at the bottle-thrower. Within seconds, the entire bar had erupted into a brawl. Kremlings rolled over the floor fighting, using makeshift weapons like bottles, glasses and chairs.

"Stand up, Dix, quickly!" Diddy whispered. "Now turn around and head for the exit. No, left!" he said as a Kremling wielding a chair came their way from the right. Fortunately he was punched out by another Kremling. "Okay, go right again." Diddy ducked as a plate frisbee'd just over his head. They were nearly at the exit now. That's when one of the fighting Kremlings lost his balance and gripped their coat while falling, tearing the coat off Diddy's shoulders.

–

The whole bar brawl had stopped, and all Kremlings were looking at the Kongs. Three of them had even stopped right in the middle of throwing a fourth through the window. _Well, this is awkward._ Diddy thought.

"Um... Hi." He said as he jumped off Dixie's back. "Please continue your regularly scheduled activities." The Kremlings apparently had no will to continue their barfight, so he just said "Well, we have to go. Bye!" and he and Dixie started running for their lives.

They had barely made it out of the bar before the Kremlings started pouring through the door to pursue them. Diddy and Dixie ran as fast as they could through Krazy Kremland trying to lose them, but it was surprising how well the band of drunk crocodiles was able to keep up with them. Most of them had brought their makeshift weapons from the barfight (mostly chairs and bottles) along. To make matters worse, several Kremlings walking around noticed the two fleeing monkeys and joined the band of maniacs pursuing them.

"We can't escape them like this, Diddy, let's head for the roller coasters!" Dixie said.

Diddy agreed and they ran for the rollercoasters. One of them didn't look too lethal and seemed to be heading out of the cavern that contained most of Krazy Kremland , but there was a large row of Kremlings in front of it, waiting to enter the ride. Since the Kongs were too small to ride the coaster anyway, and there was an angry mob of Kremlings coming after them, they didn't bother joining the line but jumped on the waiting Kremlings' heads to get to the coaster quickly, prompting exclamations like:

"OW!"

"HEY!"

"Watch what yer doing!"

"Kongs! Get them!"

"Hey! Stand in line like everyone else!"

Ignoring the protests of the Kremling behind the counter, the Kongs raced past and jumped in a cart. It moved away immediately at enormous speed, prompting a little yelp from Dixie and causing Diddy's cap to almost blow off his head.

Back at the counter, the angry mob of Kremlings that was still in pursuit of them roughly pushed themselves past the already hurt Kremlings waiting in line and jumped into carts themselves.

Meanwhile, the Kongs' cart went down steeply, increasing the speed even more, and both Kongs screamed partly in terror and partly in enjoyment. After a short piece of horizontal track, the rails suddenly ended and the Kongs' cart fell down. Fortunately it landed on another track that ran just a metre below. That's when the Kongs heard "Get them!" from behind them and knew their pursuers hadn't given up yet.

"Quite determined for a bunch of drunk down their luck Kremlings aren't they?" Dixie remarked.

Diddy wanted to answer, but noticed another roller coaster had approached the one they were on very closely, and there was in fact an empty cart on it moving faster than their cart. "Let's switch carts!" he said, and jumped into the other cart.

Their new cart was faster than the old one, and they lost their pursuers, but they were headed straight for a door that blocked the roller coaster. The door opened just in time, but then the rollercoaster came to a sudden end. The cart fell down a few metres and landed on the tracks of the first coaster they had been on. There was a cart with three Kremlings riding in front of them now. The Kremlings started throwing chairs and bottles at the Kongs. But while they were throwing these things they weren't looking in front of them and plunged in the depths when the rollercoaster came to an end. A third coaster with an empty cart was near, and the Kongs jumped into it with relative ease. This coaster took them out of the cave, into the open sky as it soared above the parts of Krazy Kremland that were outside. The Sun hung pretty low in the west and stung in their eyes as evening approached.

Before long, this coaster came to an end too and they had to switch tracks again.

"I think we lost our pursuers!" Dixie shouted over the soaring wind.

"Yeah, but wherever we come down there will be other Kremlings to pursue us!" Diddy replied.

"Not neccesarily! Look up there! There won't be any Kremlings there!"

She pointed to a huge cluster of bramble plants higher up on the mountain slope, quite similar to the one they had climbed in the Krem Quay, except larger. A lone roller coaster track was leading into it, and on the other side it was leading out of it again.

"Good thinking!" Diddy shouted, "Let's try to go there!"

The track that led to the bramble plants was now on their immediate right, but there were no carts on it.

"We must try to get this cart on it!" Diddy shouted. "On three, dash to the right as hard as you can! One! Two! Three!" The Kongs both put all their weight to the right, and the cart came off the rails. For a moment Diddy thought they would crash down, but the cart found the other rails and rode on them. They were now riding up rapidly, and the thorny plants were coming closer. After a while they completely surrounded the track and a moment later the track suddenly ended and the cart, along with the two screaming Kongs, fell down. Both Kongs landed in the brambles, bruised and covered in thorns.

"Whose clever idea was the coat again?" Dixie groaned.

–

After a short break, which mainly involved getting their senses back after having had their brains shaken in the crash, debating whose idea the coat had been (They had both had the same idea when they saw it lying around without an owner), and removing thorns from their skins, the Kongs set off again through the thorny brambles. The mountain slope was way too steep to climb down and the bramble forest didn't reach high enough on the mountain to climb to the forested area higher on the mountain, so they would have to get back to Krazy Kremland by using the other coaster track, which was at the other side of the thick forest of thorny branches. This bramble forest was more easily permeable than the one they had climbed in the Krem Quay, as there were wooden planks laying around that formed walkways from time to time. It appeared this had once been part of an attraction of Krazy Kremland, but had been completely forgotten.

The evening Sun shone through the thick branches, creating wonderful shadow effects. The place buzzed with life from various insects (None of them, fortunately, Zingersized), and the Kongs could eat as much brambles as they liked.

They reached a plateau on the mountain's side covered with the brambles and walked on the solid ground. The brambles were still present overhead and the ground was covered in leaves.

As the sunset lighted everything in beautiful shades of red, the Kongs reached a small lake on the plateau, formed by a brook that ran down the plateau meandering.

"I think we should rest here for the night." Dixie said. Before Diddy could say anything, she went on "We haven't slept since the adventure started, except a few hours in the Krem Quay, and that was more than 24 hours ago. If we sleep a full night now, I think we can get to the mountain top without anymore long breaks. We could use all these fallen leaves to sleep on relatively soft ground and the lake would be a good place to freshen ourselves up, as this adventure hasn't exactly made us cleaner."

"I was sold at the part about not having slept since the adventure started." Diddy grinned, and he jumped into the lake. The cool water was very freshening and soothed his bruises. Neither he nor Dixie swam very long though, as the water was rather cold. They were, after all, quite high up op the mountain here and temperatures were dropping as the Sun was setting. They left the water to dry up before the Sun set completely.

"Diddy, could you do me a favour?" Dixie asked.

"Sure, what is it?"

"Could you brush my hair? It's kind of difficult to do properly myself without a mirror."

"Of course, but did you bring a hairbrush?"

"Remember when I said I needed to get something I knew I was going to need on this adventure?"

"It was a hairbrush?" Diddy said sceptically, but then he took a good look at her strawy hair. "Yeah... That was probably a good idea."

As he brushed her hair it slowly returned to its former beautiful state. "You know," he said, "this almost seems like a travel log of our adventure. I'm finding wood splinters and strands of rope from the Gangplank Galleon, dust and ashes from the Crocodile Cauldron, mud and slime from the Krem Quay, and honey and thorns from Krazy Kremland."

Dixie chuckled. "Well, I hope you don't mind me getting you to ruin our travel log."

"Not at all. There, I'm finished. You look lovely once more."

Dixie frowned and blushed as she tried to suppress a smile. "Meaning I didn't look lovely the past few days?"

"That's not what I meant. I meant you look lovelier- more lovely."

A silence fell between them. _She _does_ look lovely, _Diddy thought dreamily, _especially with the final rays of the setting Sun lighting her face like that. _As he thought that, his eyes slowly closed, and he almost fell asleep standing there.

Dixie giggled. "Looks like it's time to go to sleep. For both of us."

They lay down next to each other on the leaf-covered slope. The Sun had almost completely set, only a small stripe of red light was still above the horizon. The sky coloured in wonderful shades ranging from yellow to deep purple, and with the first stars were already thorny branches in front of it added a lovely green. It all illuminated the ocean far below, creating a soft, rippling refection off the water's calm surface. The Kongs were both awestruck by the gorgeous view.

"Have you ever seen such a wonderful view?" Dixie sighed.

Diddy turned to face her. Their faces were barely twenty centimetres apart. He looked deep into her emerald eyes, and she looked back into his eyes. They seemed to be frozen in place as they gazed into each other's eyes. Diddy slowly began to move his head closer to Dixie's, and she began to do the same, slowly drawing closer until their faces were only centimetres apart. Diddy turned his head slightly, causing him to come into contact with her upper lip, which gave them the first taste of a kiss. She hesitated for a second as she allowed him to continue caressing her upper lip with his own and just let the feeling absorb within her. After continuing like this for a few seconds, Dixie also joined in and their mouths met in a long kiss. Diddy closed his eyes, and eventually their lips parted. Still in each other's arms, they both fell asleep as the Sun disappeared under the horizon.

–

Diddy woke up still in Dixie's arms. He remembered the kiss they had shared that evening, and smiled at the memory. He wondered to himself if, now that she was his girlfriend, he should start calling her "darling", and immediately sniggered silently at the thought. "Dear", perhaps? _No, yuck._ Perhaps "Dixie-pixie"... Ok, that was definitely getting way too silly. _No cute nicknames then, I guess. _He thought.

He studied her lovely face for a while. Even though she had very beautiful eyes, she was even prettier when asleep. She looked so peaceful. He sighed, figuring he should really wake her up. But then, she was sleeping so peacefully, and he was lying so comfortably... He remembered Donkey Kong was at K. Rool's mercy, and that motivated him enough to wake her.

"Wake up, Dix." he said softly. She opened her eyes, seeming confused for a moment, but then she smiled.

"Good morning." She said.

"Good morning." Diddy replied. They lay there for a moment, both unsure of what to say.

"Sorry to wake you up, but we need to get going again."

Dixie sighed. "Do we have to? I am lying quite comfortably."

Diddy considered submitting and letting the both of them rest in each other's arms for another hour, but he knew he couldn't. "Sorry, but we have to go. If we can get back to Krazy Kremland before noon I doubt we'll see a single Kremling around. Considering how drunk they already were in the afternoon, I doubt they're worth much in the morning."

"Fine." Dixie said, as they stood up. They set off through the thick brambles again after drinking from the lake. They walked in a not entirely comfortable silence, not sure what to say to each other. It wasn't long before they had to leave the solid ground and walked on the plants and the broken walkways again. A thin morning mist hang between the brambles, and it was surprisingly chilly. After a relatively uneventful journey through the forest of thorns (the only significant happenings being loud yelps from time to time when they stepped in a thorn), the Kongs reached the rail track leading down. Unfortunatly, there was no cart on it.

"So now what do we do?" Dixie asked.

Diddy jumped on the tracks and started walking on them. "Follow me."

–

When they reached solid ground, there wasn't a Kremling around. The whole of Krazy Kremland, which had seemed so lively (albeit insane) the day before now seemed like a ghost town (a well lighted ghost town full of bizarre attractions, that is). The few Kremlings they did see were fast asleep (most of them still holding one or more bottles in their hands). It wasn't long before the Kongs reached the end of Krazy Kremland. To their right, lots of the "hills" that they now knew to be Zinger hives were visible, menacing and distant, and producing a remote buzzing noise. Both were very glad they weren't going in that direction. To their left, there was a path through a swamp that marked the entrance to the forest higher up on the mountain. The path through the swamp was raised on wooden walkways that made it a lot easier than if they had had to plow their way through the mud again.

"I'll be glad when we finally reach that forest." Diddy said. "Volcanoes, marshes, Zinger nests and demented bloody amusement parks have their charm, but they can't comepare to a good lively forest."

Dixie agreed. "And we will be there within the hour from the looks of it. Since it's still morning, I'd say we can get to the top before sunset. Then we'll only have to fight our way through the castle. _That_'s gonna be a cakewalk."

Diddy grinned in agreement, but then suddenly realised the buzzing sound from the faraway hives had grown louder. "Hide under the walkway!" he shouted and did so. But it was too late: the Zinger patrol had noticed them and attacked. As Diddy hid under the walkway, he drew his peanut popgun. Two of the Zingers tried to get under the walkway too, so Diddy shot a salvo of peanuts at each. The monsters tried again, and Diddy fired another salvo at them. That put them off apparently, as they withdrew and flew away along with the rest of the patrol.

"That was a close call, wasn't it, Dix?" he said happily. When she didn't answer, he realised something was horribly wrong. "Dixie?" he turned around and didn't see her. With a growing sense of dread he looked at the retreating patrol and noticed one of them was holding a small, flailing figure dressed in pink.

"DIXIE!" he screamed after them, as they disappeared in the distance.

_I have to save her, I have to follow them!_ He thought as panic arose.

_I can't do that, I'm already on a mission to save DK._

_DK may already be dead, but Dixie will certainly die if I don't save her!_

_If I go to save Dixie, I will have to enter those horrible hives again and will likely die myself, thus spelling doom over all three of us, while I may stand a reasonable chance of saving DK._

_I can't leave Dixie behind in the claws of those monsters._

_I can't leave DK to die, he's my friend. I'll also have to enter those Zinger hives again if I go to save Dixie._

Crippling fear rose up in him. He looked at the path to the forest higher on the mountain and then to the swampy road to the distant, terrifying hives. With tears in his eyes,he continued on the path to the forest.

–

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Wow, 18 months since the last chapter! I'm feeling like writing a lot lately, so the next chapter will probably appear soon, but I won't make any promises (since I'll break them anyway), except that I will finish this story if it takes me a decade.

READER'S QUESTIONS:

Captain Bones:

Q: Just like on Gangplank Galley the kremlings are playing cards. Is that all they do?

A: Pretty much, yeah. They like playing cards when they're not stealing bananas or fighting monkeys.

Katakana Kong:

Q: What did Dixie have to retreave. I NEED 2 KNOW! Its eating me alive just to find out!

A: Now you know. I certainly hadn't expected multiple comments on what was basically the setup for a minor joke 4 chapters later. I hope the revelation satisfied your curiosity.


	6. Interlude

Chapter Six: Interlude Involving Infuriating Indecisiveness, Immolation by Insects, Inability to Intervene in Improper Immersion in Ichor, and Illogical Investigation in Illboding Apiary

Diddy Kong walked up the slopes of the mountain, through the outskirts of the forest, that was looking quite lovely.

_Much like Dixie did._

Tears welled up in his eyes as he remembered how he had abandoned her. _Don't think about Dixie._

Yes, it truly was a lovely forest. Some small insects buzzed around Diddy's head.

_Much smaller than the monsters that took her. The monsters that I am too afraid of to rescue her._

_Don't think about it. There's nothing I could have done._

He walked on up the forested slope. He heard a stream's distant babble. It reminded him of the sound the small brook flowing into the lake where he had brushed Dixie's hair. He was reminded of the silky feeling of her golden hair as he ran his hand through it, her radiant smile as they'd playfully flirted, and the brilliant red light of the setting Sun, but the memory didn't make him feel better. Dixie trusted him, she was his best friend, and now he had betrayed her out of cowardice.

_It was the only logical thing to do, and constantly thinking about it and blaming myself will only distract me on my quest._

He kept walking through the lovely forest. A few thorny bramble plants grew under a tree, and Diddy remembered the kiss he and Dixie had shared in the bramble forest. He was reminded of the look of adoration in her emerald eyes, the soft touch of her kiss on his lips, and the feeling of warmth spreading from his heart.

_She is going to die, and it will be my fault!_

_The only thing that I will gain by going after her is that I will get myself killed too._

_Remember how she looked at me in the bramble forest. How different would she have looked at me if she knew I was going to betray her like this the next morning? She'd have been disgusted._

_I'm just a small monkey against a whole hive of gigantic wasps._

_Coward. Would Dixie have betrayed me like this if they'd caught me?_

_I have to think of DK. I have to save him and I can't do that if I get myself killed in those hives._

_And if I run into another dangerous situation when I'm saving him, will I cowardly betray him too?_

_I did not betray Dixie! There's quite simply nothing I could've done for her._

_She trusts me, and I'm betraying that trust. How will I live with myself if I don't turn back?_

_I won't live at all if I do turn back._

He remembered the unlucky creature he'd witnessed getting fed to a Zinger. The desperate cries for help, the flailing, and finally the blood. A horrific image entered his mind: Dixie screaming and flailing like that as Zingers forced her into a hexagonal panel, where the horriffic larva's jaws ripped her slender body open. The thought almost made him go sick, and he had to lean on a tree for support as his legs started trembling vehemently.

_That's what will happen to her if I don't turn back._

He turned around and took a step back. But now he imagined himself getting fed to a larva and stopped in fear. He stood frozen in place in doubt, not knowing what to do. Going back would mean facing the hives again, entering them on his own, and most likely dying. Even if he survived, it could take days to get out of the hives, and Donkey Kong might not have that long. It would be too dangerous.

"To hell with the danger, I can't leave her to die!" He said as he turned around.

–

Diddy had ran downhillas fast as he could. He left the forest soon and passed over the walkways through the swamp again, and finally crossed the grassy plateau seperating the swamp from the hives. As he neared the hives he ran into a bit of unexpected trouble: there was not one, but five hives there. One of the hives which was a lot larger than the others and about the size of a small mountain, but apart from that all five looked the same. Diddy didn't know in which of the hives Dixie was. _My chance of success just became five times smaller. Wonderful._

He had to think this over carefully to find out if there was anything that might give him a clue to which hive was the correct one. If he chose a wrong one, he'd never find Dixie and they would both die horribly. If he chose the right one there was only a large chance that they would both die horribly. The largest hive probably held the most Zingers, so it had the best chance the Zingers that captured her came from it. However, it would be so large that it would be even harder to actually find her inside, and the fact that it held more Zingers meant there were more Zingers around that could spot and brutally murder him.

_Well, the whole plan is suicide anyway, might as well make my survival chances a bit slimmer. _He thought, and he headed for the largest hive.

–

Diddy slowly sneaked closer to the hive's entrance. The two Zingers guarding the entrance were completely distracted with making little carvings on the wall between them. Perhaps they were writing a novel together. Or perhaps they were playing the Zinger equivalent of tic-tac-toe. Whatever they were doing, they were distracted, leaving Diddy a chance to sneak in. He was pressed against the ground, sneaking very slowly. He was barely ten metres from the entrance, behind and under the guards. He felt very lucky Zingers don't have compoundeyes like most insects, or sneaking past them would be even harder.

Diddy stopped moving right at the hive's entrance as a wave of terror unlike anything he had ever experienced before struck him, nearly causing him to jump up and cry out in fear, but he managed to hold himself, realising that would be an epically bad idea with the two Zingers so close. He could barely contain himself, and froze in place. Entering this hive was even harder than the smaller one, as its aura of fear was even stronger and he couldn't hold Dixie's soft hand to encourage him.

_This is my last chance to turn back. Any further, and I have doomed myself to dying a horrible death._

_I've been over this already. I'm going in._

_It's a bad mistake. Dixie is dead, and I will be too if I go in._

_Maybe, but I'm going in anyway._

Determined, he tried to move forward, but found he simply couldn't. The fear was too strong, and he remained frozen in place. A tear dripped down his cheek as he realised he couldn't possibly save her even if he was determined to.

_Coward! Move!_

_No, I can't. I must go back!_

He tried to think of something to give him the courage to go in, and pictured Dixie's lovely face as she had looked right before they had kissed, with the setting Sun's final light reflecting in her emerald eyes and an enchanting smile on her lips. With only that image in his mind, he slowly moved into the hive.

–

Strangely, the oppressive fear subsided partly once the entrance of the hive was out of sight. The endless hexagons with larvae behind them surrounded him once more, and so did the eternal buzzing and the vile stench of honey (Anyone who enters a Zinger hive and manages to leave it alive does so with a lifelong severe dislike of honey's smell). As Diddy walked through the hive he quickly came to a split in the tunnel. One way went left and slightly up, the other went right and slightly down. In the hive they had traversed earlier, they had solved problems like this by always taking the right path, as it would keep them close to the outside wall of the hive. This time though, he didn't have the luxury of an easy choice like that as he wasn't looking for the exit but for Dixie.

_She can be anywhere in this huge hive. _Diddy thought,_ There could be a thousand of these split paths and only one of them would get me to Dixie. If I thought back to Wrinkly's classes, I could probably calculate how much chance of success picking roads at random gives me, but even without that, I can safely say the chances are miniscule._

He looked into the two tunnels to see if either of them had any signs of it being the right choice, and noticed a long blond hair lying in the right tunnel. His heart warmed and his hope returned.

_That must mean she was actually brought into this hive. Even better, it means she's still alive and trusts me to rescue her._ He felt very ashamed when he realised he had almost betrayed that trust.

He followed the trail of hairs Dixie had left into the hive. It was not easy, seeing as she had dropped only one hair at every crossing, and that hair was often difficult to find, but he was making progress. It was worrying that the trail led continuously deeper into the hive, though. As he continued, he had to hide from Zingers more and more often, as he was entering the busier central parts of the hive. Somehow, the light stayed at a constant brightness even though he was getting deeper and deeper into the hive. In these parts of the hive most hexagons harboured a gross larva, making the empty hexagons a minority.

The Sun didn't penetrate into the endless honeyfilled tunnels, so Diddy had no clue how long he had been in the hive. It could be an hour, or it could be two days. The only thing he did know was that he would save Dixie if it would cost him a decade and his life.

He was startled by a low-pitched voice shouting far behind him. He dived into the thick layer of honey to hide himself.

Two Zingers approached holding a rhinoceros who was furiously trying to escape from their grapple. T_hat's ambitious of them, _Diddy mused. He considered letting them pass and leaving the rhinoceros to his fate, but figured he could hardly just ignore a fellow creature's suffering like that.

"Hey! You two, look over here, I'm a monkey!" he shouted jumping up out of the honey. The two Zingers turned instantly, and this was just the distraction the rhinoceros needed. He wrangled himself loose and managed to bash the two Zingers before even hitting the ground. Diddy approached the place where the rhinoceros had landed to see if he was okay. He had landed softly in a thick blob of honey, so he was unharmed, though the same could not be said about the Zingers. One of their spikes had shattered on impact with the ground, breaking into two pieces with a very sharp breaking line. One of the pieces was about the right size for Diddy to use as a makeshift weapon. _I'll probably need this._

"Thank you, little monkey!" the rhinoceros said, "I'm Rambi."

"I'm Diddy Kong." Diddy answered.

"Thanks for saving my life. Now let's get out of here. Get on my back."

"I can't leave with you. I'm here to rescue someone."

Rambi looked puzzled. "You just did."

"No, someone else. My friend- Well, I suppose she's my girlfriend now- Dixie. The Zingers csptured her."

Rambi looked amazed. "And you came in here to rescue her? That's really brave!"

"Oh, you have no idea..." Diddy muttered, but the sarcasm was lost on Rambi.

"Well, I can't let my saviour go on alone. Get on my back. Let's do some damage!"

–

Rambi rampaged through the hive with Diddy riding on his back. Of course, riding a rhinoceros has more similarities with 'holding on for dear life' than it has with 'riding'. Though stealth had its charm, in this case brute force was working much better. For one thing, they were going much faster. For another thing, it felt good to have Rambi bash the Zingers away as if they were flies. And all Diddy had to do was hold on, look for hairs indicating the direction they needed to go, and keep the Zingers off Rambi's back. aThe broken spike was a very effective tool for repelling the Zingers attacking Rambi from above. As difficult as it was to follow the trail of hairs, so easy it would be for anyone else following the trail of hurt and dead zingers and general damage to the tunnels they were leaving behind.

A small swarm of Zingers had gathered above them and was following them, but whenever they came too close Diddy would stab them with the spike. All was going well until suddenly a mighty buzzing sounded. Diddy looked behind and saw a gargantuan Zinger the size of an elephant with had a very mean look to it.

"Run, Rambi, run!" Diddy shouted. The rhinoceros ran as fast as he could as the king of the Zingers pursued. A flight of Zingers blocked their path and Rambi smashed them aside casually. With King Zing approaching closer and closer, they crossed a large open hall. About thirty Zingers launched themselves at Rambi at once. It was too much for Diddy to cope with, and Rambi got stung, causing him to turn so rapidly that Diddy fell off his back and landed in a blob of honey. Rambi and the swarm of Zingers, including their king, disappeared into a sidetunnel.

_Poor guy. I hope he can escape them._ Diddy sneaked into another tunnel where a long blond hair lay.

–

After an unindentifiable time of sneaking through more tunnels, Diddy entered a large open hall. Five tunnels ended in the hall, one of them the narrow one Diddy had been following. In the middle of the room King Zing floated in place, gigantic and threatening. Diddy's heart made a jump when he saw the small, struggling form it had in its claws.

"Let her go, you monster." He said in his most commanding tone of voice. When the gargantuan insect didn't listen he repeated his order:

"Let. Her. Go."

For a moment it seemd as if King Zing actually considered it, but then he made a weird scraping noise that Diddy supposed was the Zinger equivalent of laughter.

"Very brave of you, vertebrate, but foolish." He said. He opened a hexagon on the wall that contained some kind of fluid (Diddy had no idea what it was and even less desire to find out) and threw Dixie in. The fluid rapidly refilled itself, and Dixie was now drowning. Eyes wide with fear she tried to open the panel from the inside, but to no avail.

_I'll have to do this quickly. _Diddy thought as he drew his popgun. He shot the gigantic Zinger approaching him, but the popgun only made a faint "click". _Oh, not good..._

King Zing had nearly reached him, so he dropped the popgun and drew his makeshift sword instead, and launched himself to the left to dodge the huge beast trying to kill him. He slashed his sword at King Zing's back, but it felt like hitting a rock.

"Foolish vertebrate! Unlike your feeble fleshy kind, our bodies are protected from the outside."

As Diddy rolled to dodge another attack, he decided to distract King Zing to stand a chance of defeating him, "So what's it like to serve K. Rool?"

That made King Zing furious. He stabbed at Diddy again, who could only barely dodge the attack. He stabbed at the beast's belly, but he simply wasn't strong enough to cause any damage to such a gigantic creature, even if King Zing lacked an exoskeleton there. "I would never serve a vertebrate! I merely cooperate with him, temporarily! We will destroy him once he's served his use!"

While the king was talking Diddy rushed to Dixie's panel and tried to pry it open, but it was firmly stuck. Dixie vigorously pointed to the right inside the panel. Diddy looked while King Zing attacked again, and saw a peanut popgun lying around. _That must be her peanut popgun!_

He dived for the popgun, slipping under another attack from the king, and picked it up. King Zing flew up high to prepare for his next attack. Diddy shot a volley of peanits at Kong Zing's wings with his one hand, while he threw his makeshift sword with the other. The impacts clipped King Zing's wings, making him drop from the air. Just as he hit the ground, the makeshift weapon was passing under him with the spike pointing up. He fell onto it with his full weight, and the spike disappeared into his gut. A look of surprise and pain appeared on his insectoid face, that turned blank within seconds. _Wow, I didn't think that would actually work. _Diddy thought in surprise.

Diddy pulled at the hexagonal panel while Dixie pushed from inside, making a small flood of the semi-tranparent, sweet-yet-rancid smelling fluid gulf out of the opening panel along with Dixie.

Both Kongs were soaked with the disgusting fluid. They panted for air for a moment in silence. Just when the realization that he had won dawned in Diddy's mind, 17 Zingers entered the room. They saw the body of their king and looked at the Kongs with their creepy eyes. Diddy's mind raced to find a weapon.

_Both popguns empty, no stones or branches, spikesword buried deep in a gargantuan hymenoptera's gut..._

"We're not getting out of this one, are we?" Dixie asked.

The Zingers suddenly emitted a ferocious buzzing, and launched themselves at each other. The monotone background buzzing also quickly changed into a very aggressive and angry buzzing.

"What are they doing?" Diddy said flabbergasted.

"Not a clue." Dixie said with an equally flabbergasted look. "But I think it's our cue to leave. Let's go!"

The Kongs climbed up the honeycovered wall with much effort as the aerial battle continued and dead Zingers dropped from above from time to time. They reached the tunnel and they ran into it, leaving the remaining Zingers to their battle.

–

The apocalyptic battle raged everywhere in the hive. Large flights of Zingers collided, trying to kill one another. As the Kongs progressed through the hive, Zinger corpses littering the ground became a more frequent sight. Perhaps the Zingers fought to determine who would be the new king, or perhaps they simply didn't know what to do without their king. Either way, it was very convenient for the Kongs' expeditious retreat.

The Kongs finally exited the hive and saw the dark pre-dawn sky above them. They kept running, and slowly the sounds of collective slaughter faded away in the distance. They ran over the swamp's walkways until the hives were completely out of sight. They stopped, both panting with exhaustion.

"Diddy, you saved me." Dixie said after she had caught her breath back. Her emerald eyes were shimmering with gratitude.

_She shouldn't be grateful, I almost abandoned her._ "Yes, I suppose I did. Think nothing of it."

"Diddy, that was an incredibly brave thing to do!"

_No it wasn't, I was afraid all the time! _"No, no, it wasn't, please let the matter rest."

"Diddy, you entered that hive, got past all Zingers, and killed King Zing to save me, it was incredibly brave!" she tried to embrace him, but he turned away.

He considered continuing the whole charade, but by now he realised he hadn't gotten any braver by pretending to be brave. It just didn't work. _No more lies, I've had it._ "It was not brave! I was afraid all the time!" He said, angry at himself. "I only pretended to be brave, hoping I would actually become brave by ignoring my fear, but it didn't work. I'm a coward, and I was absolutely terrified when I saved you."

For a few seconds it was quiet, then Dixie started laughing. This was most definitely not one of the ways he had expected her to react. He turned around to her laughing, and asked, "What's so funny?"

"Diddy, that is exactly what bravery is!"

"It is?"

Dixie grinned again. "Bravery isn't about not being afraid. Fear is a very normal reaction to a dangerous or scary situation, everyone has fear! Bravery is ignoring your fear and doing what is neccesary anyway."

He was completely stupefied by this revelation and Dixie embraced him. "So-so I'm not a coward?"

She smiled an enchanting smile. "No, in fact you're the bravest person I've ever met." She said as she kissed him.


	7. The Ghosts of the Gloomy Gulch

Chapter 7: The Ghosts of the Gloomy Gulch

As the Sun rose behind them, the Kongs ran uphill through the forest. Having spent two entire days in Krazy Kremland, they had to hurry if they were to stand any chance of saving Donkey Kong at all. Fortunately the forest was pretty easy to traverse with few shrubbery under the trees. Diddy expected to reach the castle on top of the mountain somewhere in the afternoon if they kept up this pace.

As they ran, they passed the tree where Diddy had stopped and decided to return to save Dixie the morning before. He considered mentioning this to her, but felt too ashamed that he had almost abandoned her. A few minutes later they came across a small stream and took a brief break to wash the honey and other mess from the hive out of their furs. After the brief break they ran on up the mountain's slope. Slowly but surely, the forest around them changed. The temperature dropped in a telltale sign they were nearing the top of the mountain, and the trees changed along with the temperature. Whereas all the trees lower on the mountain had leaves, only conifers stood this high on the mountain. Some of them had holes in branches arranged in such a way that they looked eerily like faces. The trees stood a lot closer to each other too, blocking out most of the Sun's light and making the forest more difficult to traverse. If there were any birds or other animals they were quiet, as the Kongs' footfalls and the wind were the only sounds to be heard. A chilly mist permeated the forest, making it look positively gloomy.

They had ran through the increasingly murky forest for about two hours when Diddy heard a voice in the distance. He stopped running and asked Dixie "Did you hear that?"

Dixie came to a halt. "Hear what?"

They listened in silence for a moment, and heard the voice again. "I hear it too." Dixie said. "What could it be?"

They listened for a while, and then the voice called again. This time Diddy recognised it. "It's Donkey Kong! K. Rool must be keeping him prisoner here!" He said as they started running in the voice's direction. He heard DK's voice calling out again, this time more distant, and ran faster. As he ran, the voice occasionally called, but it never seemed to get any closer, despite their running towards it. After a while, Diddy found this very suspicious and halted.

"I think someone is trying to lure us away from something... But what could it be?" He asked, turning around to Dixie, only to notice she wasn't there. "Dix? "DIXIE?" He shouted, but only echoes answered. "Each other, got it."

–

"DIDDY?" Dixie shouted as hard she could, but the forest was silent. She had been so sure he had turned around with her when she had heard her sister Tiny's shriek behind her. Of course, she had quickly realized that the calling for help couldn't actually be Tiny and that the voice wasn't coming any closer, even though she was running towards it. That's when she had noticed Diddy was no longer with her. She was all alone in the dark forest.

Her heart made a little jump when she heard Diddy's voice: "Dixie? Where are you?"

"I'm over here!" Dixie shouted happily as she started running towards his voice.

"Follow me, Dix, I think I've found something!" Diddy's voice said. Dixie ran after his voice, as the mist was quite thick and she couldn't see him, though he couldn't be far. For some time she followed him. He seemed to be running in a weird zigzagging path.

"Diddy? How much further is it?"

"Not very far, come on!" Diddy's voice said, but Dixie was starting to get suspicious.

"Could you wait for me? I'm getting tired of just following your voice!"

"No, just follow me!" said the voice she now knew wasn't Diddy's.

She stopped running. "Who are you, and why are you trying to separate us?"

But the voice was silent, and Dixie realised she didn't even know in which direction the spot she and Diddy had split up was.

–

Diddy was in trouble. He had to find some way to find Dixie again, but couldn't think of any. He thought he'd heard her voice for a while and followed it, but had eventually realized it was the same voice that had impersonated Donkey Kong, and that it had only led him farther away from her. He didn't even know which direction she was in now, and walking around calling her name wouldn't help, as she'd just think his voice was the impersonator again. He decided the only sensible thing to do would be to continue up the mountain and hope she'd do the same and they'd run into each other. Maybe a thin pass or similar bottleneck would come up where he could wait for her, or find her waiting for him. The only problem was, that felt rather like abandoning her again.

_But the circumstances are different. When the Zingers took her, I didn't go after her out of fear. This time I'm not doing it because there wouldn't be any point. Besides, she's probably not any in more danger than me, and I'm not sure if that is a reassuring or frightening thought._

So he continued moving uphill. The Voice followed him, still imitating Dixie. While his instinct was to follow the Voice, or to answer it, he knew that would only make things worse. He did not know if the Voice was actually malicious or if it just thought it was amusing, but if it was the second then ignoring it would probably be the best way to get rid of it. After a while, it seemed to work, as it stopped bothering him.

–

The Voice was really starting to annoy Dixie. "Look, you brainless doppelganger, I don't know what you're trying to achieve," she said angrily to it, "but it's not working. I have long since realized you're not actually Diddy, and now you're just wasting both our times. So, please, go bother someone else!"

That seemed to shut the Voice up, as it didn't bother Dixie for a few minutes. Then, suddenly, a howl echoed through the forest. Dixie rolled her eyes. "Oh please, that doesn't even sound remotely like an actual wo-" She noticed a lot of glowing eyes all around her in the mist and climbed up a tree just in time as it got surrounded by a pack of wolves. After the initial shock wore off, she realised this wasn't much of a problem, as she could easily continue through the trees, behind a monkey, unlike the wolves. She grinned and made a two-fingered hand gesture at the wolves.

The wolves closely trailed Dixie as she climbed through the trees. She heard a roar and looked around. Two cougars and a brown bear appeared from the mist and joined the wolves in pursuit. _Oh bugger_, she thought as she climbed on as fast as she could. The wolves, surprisingly, didn't object at all to the new predators joining in the hunt. The cougars climbed up trees near Dixie and approached very fast, being faster climbers than her, and even the bear managed to get into a tree with surprising agility. She climbed for her life as the cougars approached, but couldn't help thinking that this was most unusual behaviour. Then it hit her, and she dropped herself in the middle of the circle of wolves.

"You're that same... Whatever you are, that has been bugging me all along, aren't you?" she said, trying to sound as sure as she could, though she wasn't entirely certain these weren't actual animals, "Come on, attack me then if you are real animals! I'm right here!" A smug smile appeared on her face as the animals didn't attack her. "That's right, you won't. Because you are not actually animals, but just some annoying ghost with an awful sense of humour who thinks this is funny. But do you know what will be funny? When Diddy and I have left this Forest of the Creepy, and you are still here without someone to play your annoying pranks on."

The animals seemed frozen in place, and then turned around and walked out of sight into the fog with their tails between their legs.

Dixie was quite satisfied with her handling of the situation and the Voice didn't bother her again. A while later she came across a small black shed. She was very curious as to what was inside, and tried to find a crack in the wall so she could peek in, but there were none. So she opened the door and walked in to take a look. Suddenly the floor opened up and she fell into the darkness.

–

Diddy was still trying to think of a plan to contact Dixie as he walked on. He had considered several ways of letting her know where he was, even including starting a fire, but none of them would work. He had a plan he could use if he reached a bottleneck, though.

His thoughts were interrupted by something small that hit the back of his head pretty hard.

"Ouch!" he turned around, but saw nothing except an old coat hanging in a tree. He shrugged and walked on, but as soon as he turned around he heard a weird laugh: "HA-HA-HA!". He turned around again, but saw nothing. He was pretty sure the Voice was back, so he decided to ignore it and walk on. As he walked on, a stick was thrown at the back of his head, and the same "HA-HA-HA!" laugh sounded. _Just ignore it, and it will go away,_ Diddy thought angrily. Another stick found it's way to the back of his head, and the laugh sounded again, but Diddy ignored it. After a few minutes without having something thrown at him, he started to relax again and wasn't expecting to get something thrown at him again. So it was all the more surprising when he was hit by a wooden chair. The impact knocked him down and the chair broke in pieces. Shocked, he turned around and saw a flying old coat holding a stack of objects: crates, chairs, books and other heavy things.

"HA-HA-HA!"

"Stop doing that! It really hurts!" Diddy said, and barely dodged a crate the coat threw at him.

"HA-HA-HA!"

"Really, cut it out, it's not funny." A dictionary flew into Diddy's face. It fell open on the ground and Diddy caught a glimpse of the word 'Zoology' but had no time to wonder what that word was doing in the middle of the dictionary.

"HA-HA-HA!"

The coat threw a bowling ball at him, which he barely dodged. Figuring there was no reasoning with this ghost, Diddy started to run. The coat followed him, throwing heavy objects and laughing. After being hit on the head particularly hard by a crate, he saw a shed of some sort and fled inside, hoping he'd be safe from the ghost there. He didn't even have time to recompose his thoughts after the battering before the floor opened up.

–

After a short drop through the darkness, Dixie landed in a seat of some sort. She tried to discern her surroundings by hand, as it was too dark to see anything. The seat shot forwards at high speed and she was pressed into it by the force of acceleration. She ducked to prevent anything from hitting her in the total darkness. The only ways she even knew she was moving were the wind and the occasional jolt the cart gave. The cart turned sharply to the right, and now there was light ahead. As the cart rode into the light, a bizarre view opened up to Dixie. She was on some sort of rollercoaster in a gigantic poorly lit hall. The wall seemed to be completely covered in books standing in gigantic bookshelfs. When she looked over the edge of the cart, she could see only a black void downwards. But she didn't have much time to wonder at the view, as a sharp turn almost knocked her out of the cart. The tracks bent up, making her afraid the cart would fall off them. Then they rapidly turned down, sending her downward screaming with fear and joy.

After a turn so sharp it hurt her neck the tracks moved up again, but this time didn't stop even when they reached a vertical angle. Dixie looked up and screamed as she only saw the black depths below and realised she was now upside-down. The tracks kept bending up and soon gravity pointed down again. She was now very glad the rollercoaster was going so fast.

"Uh-huh-huh-ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!" a scary voice laughed. A large, transparant, skeletal crocodile floated up from the depths and started following Dixie.

"S-Shoo! Go away!" Dixie said fearfully. "Sod off!"

The ghost approached while the cart went through some more stomach-turning manoeuvres. The ghost approached very closely now, trying to grab Dixie with its bony claw, when it had to move higher to dodge several other rollercoaster tracks that were crossing this one in a knotlike pattern. Dixie thought she saw a cart with something red in it on one of them, but didn't have time to look again, as the ghost was approaching once again while the cart was on a large downward slope. As the cart went faster and faster, she couldn't help holding her hands in the air and screaming. When the cart reached it's lowest point, its speed incredible, the tracks sloped up again. The ghost was pretty far behind now, but the cart was losing speed rapidly. As it got higher, the ghost approached, and it had almost reached Dixie when gravity suddenly switched off. She looked down in surprise and saw the cart was no longer on tracks and freefalling. Screaming, she looked forward and saw she was flying towards a hole in the wall. The cart flew through it, and in midair she jumped from the cart and started waving her hair around, managing to slow her descent enough to land reasonably soft.

"Dixie! Are you alright?" a familiar voice said.

The pain of the fall was immediately forgotten as she found herself in Diddy's arms. "Diddy! I'm so glad to see you again. Sorry I lost you, I thought I heard Tiny, but it was just these awful ghosts."

Diddy smiled. "I'm glad to see you too, Dixie. Let's go on."

–

Diddy was glad to have run into Dixie almost immediately after leaving the bizarre underground rollercoaster. The forest here was somewhat different than earlier, as it was littered by rocks and large holes. The holes were pretty deep, and one could easily break a leg by falling in. A powerful stormwind that frequently changed directions was blowing. This forced the Kongs to lean against the wind to keep standing, which was quite painful to Diddy after having been barraged by the ghost and then shaken by the rollercoaster, so he walked slower than Dixie and fell a bit behind. They often had to climb over rocks, which was difficult with the bruised ribs the ghost had given Diddy.

Just when they were walking by one of the gaps a fierce wind from the left startled Diddy. He put his foot out in reflex and hit the edge of the gap, which crumbled and gave way. As he fell into the gap he managed to grab a hold of what remained of the edge, and shouted for help to Dixie.

"Dixie! Help!", but the wind blew so hard it drowned out his words. "DIXIE! HELP!"

But she still didn't hear him. The rocky bottom was at least 5 metres down. He struggled to climb back on solid ground himself, but it was much harder than it normally would be because of the pain the battering ghost had caused. With a lot of strain he managed to pull his head and shoulders up to the edge, and then got a leg onto it. Finally Dixie noticed him, and she walked back, offered him a hand and helped him up.

"Thanks, Dix. With all the bruisings those ghosts gave me, I could hardly climb up myself."

"I didn't hear your call for help." Dixie said. "It's a good thing I saw you were in trouble."

–

The constantly changing wind was really starting to tire Dixie. Not only did it make the gaps in the ground a lot more dangerous (she had almost fallen into one already), but it was also impossible to walk straight into the wind. Diddy seemed unfazed by it, so she tried to stay close to him.

The forest suddenly. It front of the Kongs was a deep ravine aeroded by a river running in the depths. At the other side the forest started again, and between the trees at the other side, some long ropes hung into the ravine. Apparently a ropebridge had once been here, but had long since collapsed.

"So what do we do now?" Diddy said. "The bridge is broken, and the ravine seems to steep to descend into."

Dixie had a plan. "If I can get to the other side, I could tie an end of that rope around a stone and throw it to you, so you could cross too."

"Well, that presents us with the same problem: we can't get over it."

Dixie staggered for a moment as the wind suddenly changed. "_You_ can't, but I could float over it."

Diddy grinned. "The wind may be strong, Dixie, but it's not so strong you could float on it."

Dixie looked at him puzzled. "No, not on the wind. I could just float over." he stared at her with a blank expression. "You know, with my hair?"

"Oh, of course, your hair!" he laughed rather nervously, "I completely forgot about that. Well, I think it's a good idea. Go on."

_Weird._ Dixie thought, but she didn't have time to worry about it right now. She climbed a tree near the edge and waited for the wind to blow in the right direction. When it did, she jumped and floated to the other side. She landed safely, found a rock, tied a rope to it, and threw it to the other side. After a few tries, it hit the other shore, where Diddy tied it to a tree and climbed over the ravine.

They walked on through the gusty glade, but a weird sense of paranoia had nested in Dixie, so she tried to engage Diddy in conversation.

"I wonder where Donkey Kong is."

"I think he's in 's Keep. That's, after all, where we're headed." He shot a quick glance at Dixie, as if to confirm it.

"Speaking of K. Rool, remember the last time we met him?"

Diddy smiled nervously. "Oh yes, it was quite a fierce battle. But luckily we escaped, didn't we?"

Now Dixie smiled. "Oh yes, lucky us, all right. Say, I notice it's been a while since you called me by that special nickname you have for me. Would you please call me that again?" she said in a sweet tone of voice.

Diddy seemed nervous. "Uh, yeah, that's a nice nickname, isn't it? Now let's focus on the road ahead and talk later."

"The nickname, Diddy. Now."

"Uh... Okay, well... Uh... Sweetie? Let's go."

Dixie drew the peanut popgun and pointed it at his head. "Where is the real Diddy Kong?"

An unprimatish wide grin appeared on his face, which widened even further while he became grey and transparent, and then the ghost disappeared.

Dixie was angry that she had fallen for a trick like this again. But her anger was interrupted by a worrying thought: Maybe Diddy was in the company of a fake Dixie and didn't realise it. She now more than ever wanted to find him. She remembered the red flash she had seen in the underground rollercoaster, and wondered if it had been Diddy. If it was, he might be behind her. She decided to go back, cross the river again, and wait for him.

–

"What's wrong, Dix?" Diddy asked.

She looked startled. "Wrong? With me? Nothing. Why?"

"It's just that you've been so quiet and that you've been cutting off any conversation I tried to make very quickly."

She sighed. "I'm just worried about Donkey Kong, that's all."

Diddy was rather surprised about this. "Really? I mean, you hardly even knew him and-" Diddy's mouth fell open as he saw something he couldn't believe: a second Dixie stood on the path ahead.

She ran towards them, screaming: "Diddy! Watch out, it's an imposter! I'm Dixie, that's a ghost next to you!"

A part of Diddy thought this was an explanation for all the weird behaviour she had been displaying. But another part of him thought the Dixie that was running towards them shouting might be the imposter. Fortunately he didn't have to choose, as the one next to him cursed, turned into a ghost, and disappeared.

Still startled he turned to the approaching Dixie. "Yikes. Thanks, Dix, I thought that was you and- What are you doing?"

She drew her peanut popgun and aimed it at him. "What were the last words I said to Diddy Kong before kissing him?" She said in a not-to-be-trifled-with voice.

Diddy couldn't believe his eyes. "Dix, it's me! Put the popgun down!"

"Answer the question." She said with a fierce gleam in her eyes.

"T-The first time you said "Have you ever seen such a wonderful view?" and the second time you said "You're the bravest person I've ever met."" he blushed at the memory.

She breathed a sigh of relief, smiled, and dropped the popgun. "Thank goodness, it's really you."

She tried to embrace Diddy, but he kept her at a distance, realising this might be a ghost too. "How do I know you're really Dixie and not just another ghost?"

"Ask me anything only the real Dixie could answer."

"And how would I know a ghost couldn't answer that question? These ghosts have at least some knowledge about me, perhaps they're telepathic."

"A ghost fooled me into thinking it was you for a while, and he had a rather fragmental knowledge about us. It didn't even know that you often call me 'Dix', and that I can use my hair to float."

"Since I'm not sure if you're the real Dixie or a ghost, that doesn't help me much." An idea formed in Diddy's mind. "But I'll ask you some questions to see if you're really Dixie. Which one of us is the fastest swimmer?"

"You are."

"Alright, let's try another one: who passes out first when we were under water in the Gangplank Galleon?"

Dixie looked as if she was offended by the question. "I did."

"Who defeated Kleever and King Zing?"

She looked very angry now. "You did, but I-"

"And who was kidnapped by Zingers and who had to save her?"

Now she was positively furious. "Stop asking me these questions! I've got some questions for you too! Who was captured by Krow, and who had to come rescue that idiot? Who managed to fool Kudgel into hitting himself? Who managed to figure out her companion was an imposter, and who walked around blindly alongside a ghost? Hmm?" She became even angrier as she saw Diddy was grinning. "Do you think this is funny? You have an even worse sense of humour than those ghosts!"

"That temper certainly reminds me of the real Dixie. I think you're probably the real one."

Dixie put her hands on her hips and tried to look angry, but it was clear she was trying to hide her laughing. "Oh, very smart." She said sarcastically. "What do you mean by 'probably'?"

Diddy became serious. "I'm sorry, but even now I can't be certain it's really you. And unfortunately I don't know how you could prove you are really you either."

Dixie looked rather annoyed, then rolled her eyes, approached him, put her arms around him, and kissed him. At first, Diddy was rather surprised, but a delightful warm feeling of love spread from his heart through his entire body, and he joined in the kiss. When they broke apart, Diddy said: "All right, you've convinced me. No ghost could be such a good kisser."

–

As the Kongs walked further through the forest in a content silence. The ghosts tried a couple more tricks, but by now the Kongs were prepared and didn't fall for a single one. They held hands to prevent being seperated again, and because it really counteracted the gloomy atmosphere of the forest.

As they walked on, a sweetish smell started permeating the fog. It wasn't until they were really close that they realized there was a Zinger hive near, though, as the usual buzzing was absent. Strangely enough, this Zinger hive didn't have the same aura of fear all the other hives seemed to have. In fact, it made both Kongs rather curious.

"Let's just quickly go in and see if there's anything in there." Dixie said.

They walked to the entrance and saw nothing, so they took a few steps in.

"Strange." Diddy mumbled, but then, three grey transparant Zinger appeared as they flew through the wall and came at them. The Kongs ran for their lives followed by the Zingers. Suddenly Dixie ran into something invisible, and she was stuck in whatever it was, unable to move any of her limbs more than a few centimetres. Next to her she saw Diddy was helpless too and suspended in mid-air. The ghost Zingers approached rapidly, but then suddenly lost substance and disappeared.

"Well..." Dixie said, "That was... Weird?"

Diddy shrugged. "Dix, try to find out what is holding us."

Dixie couldn't see anything at first, but when she looked real closely, she saw incredibly thin wires that were sticking to them.

"You're in my web, that's what's holding you." A rapsy, hoarse voice from above said. Dixie looked up and screamed, as a gigantic red spider was hanging there. While she was not afraid of spiders, she was afraid of huge ones that could bite off your head in a single bite.

"Don't be scared," the spider said, "I don't eat mammals. Your hairs get stuck in my throat."

"Th-that's good to know, mr...?" Diddy stammered.

"Squitter is the name. What are two monkeys doing on Krockodile Island?"

Not wanting to confide in Squitter, Dixie answered, "Vacation."

Squitter made a weird clicking sound. "Sure you are. Why are you really here?"

"A friend of ours was kidnapped by K. Rool." Diddy said, "and we're trying to save him."

"Hmmm... Now that changes matters. I was about to just let you go, but now I can't do that."

Dixie shot an annoyed look at Diddy. _He really should learn not to trust everyone so easily,_ she thought.

"No, I will help you along a bit instead. K. Rool's men are always dumping barrels of spoiled grog in the Gloomy Gulch, or they're trying to cut down the forest, so I don't particularly like them. I'll release you, and then you can ride on my back for a while."

"Uh... Thanks." Diddy said, rather surprised at this turn of events.

–

Riding on Squitter was a rather weird sensation. With his eight legs, the spider walked in a very different way than any other animal Dixie had ever ridden. Riding on Squitter sometimes felt like flying, as the spider would shoot off threads of spiderwire onto a faraway rock or tree and climb along the wire. After a while of climbing like this, Dixie figured Squitter might be the best person to ask something she had been wondering about. "Squitter, do you know why those Zinger ghosts disappeared when they came after us?"

As Squitter climbed along a thread he answered. "Ghosts only haunt one specific place, and can't leave that place. For most ghosts here, the entire Gulch is the place they haunt, but some have a more specific area. Those Zingers considered that hive their home in life, and now they consider it their home in undeath."

Dixie thought about it. "But doesn't that get awfully dull if you can't ever leave one single place, and not even be able to do things like eat and sleep to pass the time?"

Squitter made another clicking sound. "Oh yes, some of my ghost friends tell me it can get rather dull as a ghost. That's why so many spend their time pulling pranks. And from the bruised look of your friend, you ran into one with a slapstick sense of humour."

"Yeah, he thought it was hilarious to throw heavy wooden objects at me." Diddy said.

"Fortunately for them, there is a way out. Every ghost is a ghost because there was still something they wanted to achieve when they died. If they just achieve whatever that is, they stop being a ghost and die properly."

They kept going on through the forest and the temperature kept dropping until the Kongs both shivered and their breath formed little clouds. "Well, Kongs, this is as far as I'm going, I don't like it when it's too cold. The edge of the forest isn't far from here. Good luck on your quest."

"Thanks, Squitter," the Kongs both said.

–

As Squitter said, the edge of the Gloomy Gulch was near. Unfortunatly, its edge was a twenty metre high precipice.

"I guess they don't call it a gulch for no reason." Dixie said.

They walked along the precipice, looking for some way up, and eventually saw a shipwreck, the mast of which reached to the edge of the precipice.

By now a strong icy wind had started blowing and heavy, ice cold rain was dropping, chilling the Kongs to the bone. They climbed aboard the ship.

"How did this get all the way up here?" Dixie wondered.

"Look, Dix, a bird ghost." Diddy said, pointing towards an ugly small ghostly bird flapping around. It looked somewhat familiar, as if it were a relative of someone she had met. _Uh oh._

"Diddy, we have to get out of here, right now!" she said with fear in her voice.

"Ah, you recognised your victim, haven't you, murderer?" an all too familiar voice said. Dixie turned around and with a shock she recognised Krow, who looked rather grey and transparant. 14 other small birds just like the first one flew up and surrounded the Kongs.

Dixie was terrified, but was determined not to let Krow know. "Uh... Hey there, Krow. You're looking rather bleak today. So I guess you've died, then? I do hope it was nothing painless."

Krow shrieked. "Oh, it wasn't very painful to the body, but so much more to the soul. In fact, YOU killed me, Dixie Kong! And all 15 of my children too!"

Despite circumstances, Dixie couldn't help argue the point. "I should point out that you bumped into your own nest, which killed half of them. And I don't know what happened to you, but I'm pretty sure I didn't do it."

"SILENCE!" Krow shrieked, "I will make you and your friend wish you had never been born, like my children!"

The sixteen ghost birds swooped in at the Kongs. They jumped, rolled, cartwheeled, ducked, and shot with their popguns at them to avoid their attacks, and the cartwheeled or shot birds actually were dazed for a while before rejoining the melee. Though the Kongs were at the moment holding out, Dixie realised they were still in big trouble and that one tiny mistake could prove fatal. They started climbing in the ship's mainbrace, as it prevented the birds from attacking them from one side, and allowed them to keep moving so they wouldn't be bogged down by their enemies.

As the battle moved up, the storm increased in strength and made both flying and climbing a very tricky business. When the wind turned it often blew a bird far away from the battle for a while or almost made a Kong lose grip on the mainbrace and fall down. Finally they reached the topsail, where the battle continued on the gaff. While Dixie slapped one bird away with her hair and shot another one, she heard a scream and looked around to see Diddy behind lifted up by a cluster of ten birds.

"Surrender," Krow said, "or I tell my children to tear open your friend's belly and eat his organs one by one."

"No. Let Diddy go, or I'll jump." Dixie answered.

Krow and all her children laughed. "And why sould that bother me? I am trying to kill you anyway!"

Dixie forced herself to smile smugly. "Yes, you are trying to kill me, not just to let me die. If I jump, you will never have the pleasure of avenging your kids. And, what's more, I suspect you have become a ghost to kill me, so if I die that can never be fulfilled and you would have to stay here as a ghost for eternity." Dixie was only bluffing, as she had no clue whether ghost rules actually worked like that, but she had to try to get Diddy out of this. "Have you ever noticed how awfully long eternity is? I have only lived seventeen years myself, so I couldn't tell you, but if I jump you'll get to find out for yourself. Think about it, you'd actually get to see the movement of the continents over the aeons."

Krow seemed unable to decide, but also frightened. Eventually she said "If I let your friend go, will you surrender to my vengeance?"

Dixie had to think about that one. While Diddy going free would certainly be an improvement over the current situation, she would prefer to leave alive too. She decided to agree with the deal, wait until Diddy had reached to top of the precipice, and then come back on her promise and try to get out alive as well (Keeping promises, she reasoned, was nice, but if her life depended on it she'd gladly break one, especially one made to her arch nemesis).

"Yes. I promise. Let him go and wait until he has left the ship. Then I will submit to your vengeance."

Krow smiled. "Liar. You didn't expect me to actually believe someone with mky childrens' blood on her hands, did you? You'd just come back on your promise. Besides, my vengeance wouldn't be complete without forcing you to watch your friend die first."

Diddy said something Dixie couldn't make out.

"Well, Krow, in that case have fun watching the Sun die! I'm sure it'll be quite spectacular!" Dixie said as she jumped off the gaff, making sure the sail blocked Krow's sight of her fall. While it was very difficult in a storm, she managed to float long enough to find a fold in the sail large enough for her to hide in.

"NO!" Dixie heard Krow shriek, and immediately she heard the sound of 30 small wings and two large ones overhead and then circling around, looking for her. She didn't hear Diddy, so she hoped they'd forgotten about him. Holding on to the sail in the fold was becoming increasingly more difficult.

"Where are you?" Krow shrieked. "I don't see your corpse, so you're hiding somewhere! We will find you and eat you alive, coward!"

Dixie had to get up on the precipice somehow, and hope the ship or the Gulch was the only place Krow&co could haunt. But she didn't have enoguh grip on the sail to climb up: even hanging in place was becoming very difficult. She had to find some way to have more grip on the sail, like sticking a knife through it. While she didn't have a knife, she did have a hairbrush. She figured she could try if she could puncture the sail with it. She took one hand off the sail to get the brush, holding on desperately with the other, and then slammed the brush into the sail as hard as she could. To her surprise, it actually punctured the sail, and she could pull herself up on it. _"Something I'll definitely need on our adventure." Heh, no kidding, Dixie,_ She thought as she did it again, and got a bit higher. But if she would do it once more, she would be out of the fold in the sail and in plain view of the birds.

"If you won't come out we'll just start with your friend! Now, dearies, which one of you had him? What! You don't know? Then where is he? There! He's getting away! After him!"

Dixie climbed on as fast as she could while the birds were distracted by Diddy's escape. She reached the gaff, and saw the birds circle around the crow's nest.

"Hey! I'm right here!" She shouted. Krow and her children swooped down to attack her, but were pelted by peanuts from Diddy's peanut popgun. Dixie climbed into the crow's nest while Diddy covered her. The birds furiously attacked them as they jumped onto the precipice and ran away. They didn't look back, but the sound of wings behind them quickly subsided. Finally they heard a furious shriek.

–

AUTHOR'S NOTES: That's another chapter done! Interestingly, this one turned out rather differently than I had planned. I had planned it to be a pretty short and easy breather chapter between two larger, more adventurous chapters, like the Krem Quay chapter was. It ended up the second-longest of all my chapters (at exactly 6000 words) [Update at the rewrite: Now it's actually the longest chapter so far, a bit longer than the rewritten Crashed in the Crocodile Cauldron] and had quite some stuff happening. Funny how these things go.

READER'S QUESTIONS:

Q: Captain Bones: Arrrrrr! Diddy really was brave enough to save Dixie. Keep it up matey! This is getting more and more interesting with each word passes. There is one error. Diddy and Rambi already know each other. In fact Diddy met Rambi, while traveling with Donkey Kong to get the bananas back from King K. Rool.

A: It's a different Rambi. You wouldn't believe how common the name Rambi is among rhinoceres. Half the rhinoceres I know are named Rambi. Rambi from Donkey Kong Country 1 and this one also keep getting each other's mail.

On a more serious note: I goofed and forgot Rambi was in DKC 1.

And thanks to everyone who gave me such nice comments. I hope this chapter lives up to your expectations.


	8. Kongs Causing Chaos in K Rool's Keep

Chapter 8: Kongs Causing Chaos in K. Rool's Keep

Even after they'd heard Krow's furious shriek, the Kongs kept on running for a while, wanting to put a lot of distance between them and Krow in order to be sure she couldn't come after them.

When they finally stopped running they took a moment to look around. All around them was desolate alpine tundra. The ground was completely covered in short grass, with no trees at all. The fog that had been ubiquitous in the Gloomy Gulch didn't hang around here, giving them a stunning view over Crocodile Isle and the sea. The Sun was just setting at the western horizon and gave them very long shadows. The view was partially obscured by clouds, which they saw from above at their current height. Ahead, the green slopes of the mountain sloped upwards, until they turned into the white snowy summit. The snow gave way to the cold grey stone of K. Rool's Keep itself, which now dominated the view ahead, huge and intimidating. Diddy had not, until now, realised just how big the Keep was. From their current position it was a huge dominating grey monolith, with creepy gargoyles near the top. Though they were finally close to their destination, Diddy's hope sank to his toes.

"How are we ever going to get in there and find DK?" he mumbled.

"We could just knock." Dixie deadpanned. Diddy grinned, lifting his spirits a bit.

"Come on, we'll find some way in." She reassured him as she took his hand. Diddy's spirits lifted a bit more, and they walked on to the Keep. Diddy felt very exposed in the open landscape, as there always was a direct view to the Keep and nowhere to hide. Just a single observant Kremling had to look down to see them and they'd be caught.

After an uneventful journey through the alpine tundra they reached the first snow. Night had fallen and it was bitter cold. They had walked through the snow for quite some time when Diddy looked up at the Keep ahead, which now filled most of the view forward, and felt something cold and soft collide with the back of his head. He turned around to see Dixie grinning mischievously.

"It was one of those ghosts from the Gulch!"

"You're right!" Diddy said as he made a snowball, "It's right behind you! I'll get it!" and he threw the snowball at her. Though she tried to dodge it, it still hit her. "Oh, bugger. Missed it."

"Oh, I think you hit just what you were aiming for," Dixie laughed.

"Really? And what are you going to do about it?" Diddy teased.

"What do you think?" she said with a grin as she made and threw a snowball impressively fast. It hit Diddy straight in the face, and Dixie laughed.

"I'll get you for that!" Diddy said while he threw another snowball.

They threw snowballs and taunts at each other while laughing. After Diddy got in a couple of particularly good hits, Dixie ran away. Diddy chased her, and he threw some snowballs to slow her down. He was slowly gaining on her, and when he reached her he leapt at her, but with a lightning-quick move she intercepted him, threw him into the snow, and landed on top of him. Diddy tried in vain to struggle free.

"Give up yet?" Dixie asked, her face barely five centimetres from his.

"Never." Diddy said laughing. Dixie lowered her face a bit more and kissed him. Despite the cold snow he was laying in, the soft touch of her lips made him feel warm and happy. Their lips parted, but Dixie didn't get up. They just lay in the snow in a happy silence.

"I'm glad you're with me on this adventure, Dixie." Diddy said, "Without you, all these strange dangerous places would've been nothing more than dangerous and frightful. But with you along, it all becomes... Fun."

Dixie smiled, and a single sparling tear, looking quite similar to the stars behind her, appeared in the corner of her beautiful emerald eyes. She looked as if she was going to say something, but then she simply kissed him again.

Diddy never wanted the moment to end, but knew it had to.

"Dix, I'd love to stay here and completely defeat you at the snowball fight," (Dixie gave an amused snort) "But I think we should try to find a place to sleep. We haven't slept since Krazy Kremland, and that was two days ago."

Dixie grinned. "What makes you think I'll just let you go?"

Diddy struggled to turn them around, and succeeded for a moment, but Dixie used their spinning momentum to get on top again, so Diddy did the same, and they rolled through the snow like that. Finally, Diddy managed to stay on top for a while.

"Give up yet?" he asked.

"Never." Dixie echoed.

Diddy considered staying right there and kissing her, but he knew they had to find a place to sleep, so he got up and helped Dixie up.

"C'mon," he said, "let's find a place to sleep."

They walked through the snow. Dixie gently leaned her body into Diddy's side and put the side of her head on his shoulder.

"Is it okay if I walk like this?" she asked.

Diddy put his arm around her waist. "Only if it's okay if I walk like this."

Like that, they walked looking for a place to sleep so they could attack the Keep fully awake. It was by pure accident that they stumbled upon it. As they were walking up the snowy slope the snow gave away and they fell into a snow cave.

"This will be an ideal spot to sleep if it's empty. Let's check out the back." Diddy said.

The back of the cave led to a large ice cave that seemed to be empty, though it was hard to see in the darkness. They couldn't continue for long, as water filled a large part of the cave. While ice shelves floated on the water, it was way too dangerous to try to cross them in the darkness.

"Diddy, do you realise this cave is headed straight for the Keep? We may have found our way in if we can ride those shelves tomorrow!" Dixie said with glee.

Diddy realised she was right. "I guess accidents aren't the only things that never come alone, then."

They found a small corner of the cave to sleep in. Diddy realised they'd have to sleep really close to each other to avoid freezing, but found it rather hard to say that to Dixie. He thought about how he was going to breach the subject when Dixie took the need from him.

"Uh... Diddy? It will get very cold tonight, and we don't want to get hypothermia again, so uh... !" she blurted out very rapidly and then she blushed such a deep red that Diddy could see it under her fur. He blushed too.

"Ok." Diddy said as he averted his gaze.

They lay down into each others arms under the blankets rather awkwardly. They had slept in each other's arms before, of course, in Krazy Kremland, but that time they had more or less just happened to fall asleep like that. It felt a lot more awkward this time. Though, Diddy had to admit, being so close to Dixie felt good too.

"Good night, Diddy."

"Good night, Dix."

–

When Dixie awoke the first thought that occurred to her was how awfully cold her back was. It was a heavy contrast with her ventral side, which was still warm, warmed up by Diddy's body heat. She did not feel like getting up, and wasn't sure she could even move any muscle in her dorsal half, so she didn't try. She just lay in Diddy's arms and thought about what lay ahead. Today they were finally going to enter K. Rool's Keep and rescue Donkey Kong. She wondered how well protected the Keep would be, and how long they could manage to go undetected. Rescuing DK would obviously be hard, but she wasn't sure _how_ hard. With some luck, the cave would lead straight to the basement of the Keep, then they would just have to climb it and dodge all guards, find K. Rool's quarters, defeat the crocodile, and rescue DK. _Piece of cake. _

"Wake up, Dix." Diddy whispered softly in Dixie's ear.

"I'm already awake. I was waiting for you to wake up."

"Let's try to get up, then. We have a big day ahead of us."

With some regret, Dixie let go of Diddy. She tried to stand up, but the muscles in her back were almost completely unresponsive. She also found she could hardly move her calves.

"Diddy, is your backside frozen too?" she asked while trying to pull herself up from the floor.

"Yes. Let's try sitting back to back to warm up."

With great difficulty, they managed to get in seated positions and sat back to back. Dixie rubbed her calves while they chatted. Slowly the warmth and sense returned to their entire bodies, and they managed to stand up.

"Are you ready to invade K. Rool's Keep?" Diddy asked.

"You bet." Dixie smiled, "tonight, we'll have either saved DK or died trying."

"Well, I suppose it's the final day of our adventure either way."

They walked to the back of the cave and entered the larger ice cave. Now that the Sun was up outside, quite a lot of light managed to find its way inside, so they could see more of the cave than last night. Most of the floor was made of pure uncovered ice, as no snow ever fell inside the mountain. Between the ice a lot of incredibly cold looking water flowed. The icy water produced a lot of steam that hung above the water as fog. Dixie hoped they wouldn't have to swim.

Dixie's feet suddenly lost all grip on the floor, causing her to fall on her rear. Diddy guffawed even as he struggled to keep standing himself. "Oh, shut up before I push you into the water." Dixie said annoyed. Getting up was rather tricky for the second time that day, but by walking on all fours she could keep some grip on the ground.

"I think we need to go that way." Diddy pointed somewhere in the fog in front of them. "That's the Keep's direction, and I think I can vaguely see the cave continuing there through the fog."

Unfortunately there was no path on the solid ice in that direction, so they had to jump from ice shelf to ice shelf. To do this, they pushed themselves off from the wall of the cave as fast as they could, somehow managed not to slip while their momentum carried them to the edge, jump, and continued in the same direction to jump to the next ice shelf, as stopping their movement was impossible on the smooth shelves. After jumping on five different shelves like this, there was only water ahead. They managed to stop by falling flat onto the shelf and grabbing the edge. A tunnel that led on was clearly visible under water.

"It looks like we have no choice but to swim." Dixie said annoyed.

"You can be sure I'll remind DK we swam in icewater to save him a lot when we get back." Diddy said. "So... Ladies first?"

Dixie moved towards the shelf's edge, hung over it a bit and cautiouslt stuck her toes in the water. She let out a little yelp and retracted them when she felt just how cold it was.

"Getting cold feet?" Diddy asked.

Dixie couldn't help but grin at the awful pun. "Well, yes. It's so cold we'd freeze to death long before we had a chance to drown if we tried to swim through that tunnel."

Diddy said, "There has to be some- Ack!"

"Bonjour, Deedee et Deezee!" Enguarde, who had just surfaced and splashed them with icy water, said.

"Enguarde!" Diddy said, "how did you get up here?"

"I swam." Enguarde replied in a matter-of-fact tone, "get on my back, I'll help you get srough zat tunnel."

"But it's so... Cold!" Dixie shivered, "I just stuck my toe in, and it felt like it got teleported to Neptune."

"You'll only make eet worse eef you go eento eet beet by beet. Zhust take a deep breath, zhump in completely, get on my back and 'old on. Eet'll be over before you know eet."

The Kongs exchanged a look. "We count to three, and then we jump in, OK?"

Dixie grabbed Diddy's hand and they counted. "One... Two... Three!"

They took a deep breath and jumped. As soon as she breached the surface, Dixie almost screamed as it felt as if she was being boiled alive. It took a second for her nerves to realise that the immense shock they received was horrible cold, not horrible heat. Her entire body was in pain, it felt as if the frigid cold sliced right through her flesh and froze her bones. She was vaguely aware of Enguarde getting under her and starting to swim while she struggled not to panic and keep her breath in. She tried opening her eyes, but couldn't see anything as the intense cold freezing her skull caused her to only see white flashes of pain. Just when she thought she was going to panic and scream, air hit her face as they resurfaced. She jumped off Enguarde immediately and ran up the land, looking for some place to warm up. Vaguely aware that this was rather rude, she tried to thank Enguarde as she ran: "Th-th-th-th-th-th", but she was shivering so badly she couldn't even get the word out. As she ran, she noticed the air was getting a bit less cold, and she also saw a flame. She ran at it and took the torch from its stand. She saw Diddy had joined her too, and they just sat close to the torch to warm up. They were shivering so badly neither could say a word for a long time. When their shivering lessened a bit, Diddy was the first to speak. "I-I-I-I'm never doing that again."

As she warmed up, she realised she should make sure her ponytail dried up, but when she tried to bring her hand to her ponytail to squeeze the water out, some piece of ice was in the way. She turned her head so the ice wouldn't be in the way anymore, and brought her other hand to her ponytail, but it hit another piece of ice. It took her a moment to realise that her ponytail had frozen. When she told Diddy, he laughed.

"I guess it'll be more useful as a weapon now." he saw Dixie's frown and stopped laughing. "Well, turn around and I'll try to thaw it."

Dixie turned around. "Be very careful you don't break it or set fire to it or something. Short hair doesn't look good on me."

It took about half an hour, but using the torch, his hands, and his breath Diddy managed to thaw Dixie's hair. While she slowly felt the weight at the back of her head diminish, she took a look around. They had run into a tunnel in a more or less blind search for some heat. Judging by the grey stone, they had entered K. Rool's Keep.

–

Once Dixie's hair had thawed they set off through the tunnel. Diddy held the torch, while Dixie dual-wielded the two peanut popguns to shoot any Kremlings they might run into. They were still deep in the tunnels under the Keep, so they hadn't met any yet, but someone had to have lit that torch. Whenever they came to a split, they tried to take a tunnel that led up. If no tunnel went up, they'd just go straight ahead. After they had walked through the dark tunnels for some time in this manner, they ended up in a huge open room, at least twenty metres across and hundreds of metres high. A fierce wind blew from below, almost blowing Diddy's cap off. The room was somewhat cillindrical, like a well, and lots of different tunnels seemed to end up in it at different heights. Diddy looked up and was annoyed at how high they'd still have to climb. Since there were no stairs in the well, they'd have to turn around and find some other way to get up. He wanted to turn around, but Dixie said: "I have an idea. Hold my hand."

Diddy obliged. Dixie took a few steps forward and, holding Diddy's hand as a safety, tried hanging over the edge. She was immediately blown back by the huge winds and fell on top of Diddy.

"That's quite some wind. I if I tried floating on that, I could easily reach the top of this well. In fact, I think it may even be strong enough to support you as well if you held my hand."

Diddy was sceptical. "Are you sure?"

"No, but it sounds like a cool and easy way to get up there, doesn't it?"

They talked about how they were going to pull it off. After discussing it, they held each other's left hand, allowing them to each wield a peanut popgun in their right hand. "One... Two... Three!"

They ran and jumped into the well. The wind roared in Diddy's face. All his weight suddenly hang onto Dixie's hand, as she was slowing their descent by waving her ponytail around. Slowly, they stopped descending, and finally they began slowly floating upwards. Diddy grinned as he pictured just how ridiculous they had to look flying like that.

They passed the tunnel they had entered the well in on the way up, and some more empty tunnels after that. Then a voice cried out from above. "What the- ALARM! KONGS IN THE WELL!" A skinny crocodile who ran back into a tunnel screamed.

"Damn, he'll alert the entire Keep. Dix, can you go up any faster?"

He couldn't quite make out her answer in the roaring wind, but they were not going any faster.

No Kremlings appeared when they reached the tunnel that the skinny crocodile who had spotted them had disappeared into. A heavy voice shouted from two floors up, though. "ALL KANNONS READY!"

_Uh oh._ Dixie floated to the side of the well, presumably because the Kremlings wouldn't expect them to fly there, but Diddy knew they'd be spotted anyway. He had an idea. Shortly before they'd be in sight of the Kremlings, he shot his peanut popgun at the opposite wall several times. The peanuts made a loud noise, and the Kremlings immediately fired where they had hit the wall.

"NO! NO! WAIT UNTIL YOU SEE THE ENEMY BEFORE FIRING, YE MANGY DOGS! RELOAD!"

While the Kremlings reloaded, Diddy and Dixie floated by and shot them with the popguns.

On the next floor, a Kremling in a big coat waited for them. "There ye are! I'll serve yer livers on the pointy end of me hook!" he shouted as he threw his hook at them. Diddy made a weird sort of swing to dodge the hook and proceeded to shoot the crocodile.

"I see them, Kluns! Throw something at them!" someone shouted at the next floor.

"Okay!" A wooden stick flew by.

"Not my pegleg, you dolt!"

"S-Sorry, Klomp!"

"Come 'ere, I'll throw YOU!"

"So..." Diddy asked Dixie, "Do we shoot them, or do we let them work it out for themselves?"

Dixie giggled, and they lost some height. "Don't make me laugh, it makes it harder to float."

After a few more floors with Kremlings that were easily disposed of, they reached the roof of the well and entered a tunnel that ended up close to the roof.

"You know, I'd never have believed it, but your ponytail is as useful as it is pretty." Diddy said with a wink, making Dixie blush.

The tunnel ended in a grey stone hall with several doors. It was extremely high, and crossed several floors. At each floor it crossed a walkway partially covered the tower. Suddenly, the door behind them closed, and all doors around them made a clicking sound as they locked themselves. The Kongs tried to open one, but to no avail.

"Dinky Kong, I was ekspekting you!" K. Rool's voice boomed through the tower. The Kongs tried to see where the crocodile was, but they quickly realised the voice came from loudspeakers. "You actually thought you kould save that big oaf Donkey Kong from me very Keep? Ooh, look at me kwaking in me boots! Hahaharr! At least that moron Donkey Kong has muscles to make up for his lack of brains, but you are just a dumb little pest who just walked into my trap. I have nothing more to say to you. Any Kremling who brings me a monkey head will be promoted to sekond-in-kommand and get to eat today!"

A tremor shook the floor as it started moving up. For a moment, Diddy feared getting crushed, but then he realised they'd just have to dodge the first floor's walkway. "Don't worry, Dix, it's physically impossible for this floor to continue moving up after the first floor without causing structural damage to the castle." They moved out of the way of the first floor's walkway, but to his surprise the floor didn't stop moving, and the ledge didn't break off either. It just sort of sank into the floor and disappeared.

Diddy wondered if maybe the floor contained some sort of hatch that opened under the ledges, allowing them to pass through, so he took a few peanuts from his popgun ammunition and threw them under the second floor's walkway. To his great surprise, after the walkway sank into the floor, the peanuts were still there, but crushed completely flat.

"No worries, hm?" Dixie asked.

"How is that even possible?" he wondered.

Dixie snapped him out of it. "Look, it doesn't matter how it is possible, what matters is that apparently it is possible and that we're about to be crushed by it. _How_ is an interesting question we'll worry about once we're safely back on DK Isle."

The Kongs dodged the walkways of the third and fourth floors, but when the rising floor reached the fifth floor, a small yellow Kremling holding a sword in each hand was waiting there for them. "This is my lucky day!" he said, "If I bring both your heads in, the Kaptain may let me eat every day for the next week!"

Diddy fired a peanut at him, but with an incredibly quick move, the Kremling slashed his swords through the air and the peanut landed harmlessly in three pieces.

"Yikes" Dixie said.

"N-Nice move." Diddy said.

The Kremling seemed flattered. "Thanks. It took me years to learn that move. My name's Kutlass."

"Uh, hi" Diddy said, trying to keep Kutlass talking, "I didn't know it took so much training to become a Kremling."

"Oh, it doesn't. They teach you a kouple of kard games, and that's basically your training. They don't even give you a weapon, you have to bring one for yourself. I did my swordsmanship training at Dante Dragotta's fencing school before I bekame a Kremling. Most of the other guys wouldn't know the sharp end of a sword from the dull one."

The three of them dodged the sixth floor as it came down. "You know, it's really nice to chat with you like this, but it's about time I dekapitated you. Nothing personal, of course." Kutlass said, and he slashed his swords at them. The Kongs could barely roll out of harm's way.

"Kutlass, you seem like a reasonable guy," Dixie said as she dodged a second slash, "can't we just talk this out instead?"

"Not gonna happen!" Kutlass nearly managed to hit Diddy.

The seventh floor was coming down rapidly. "Diddy, give me your gun." Dixie whispered when they both dodged Kutlass into the same direction. Diddy did so and tried reasoning with Kutlass again.

"I've got an idea: why don't you join us on our quest to save Donkey Kong, and then come back to DK Isle with us? You could eat every day of your life if you want."

"No way!" Kutlass said while he slashed at Diddy, "I'm a loyal Kremling and would never betray the Kaptain!"

"In that case, I'm really sorry for this, but you _are_ trying to decapitate us." Dixie said as she fired a couple of volleys with both popguns onto Kutlass. He waved his swords like two lawnmower blades and the peanuts turned into pulp. Dixie fired two more volleys at him, with equal result.

However, while Kutlass was busy defending himself from the barrage, he hadn't watched the upcoming seventh floor, and let out a small yelp, dropped his swords, and dropped to the floor as it hit him on the head. A second later the floor hit the walkway, and a loud, sickening cruching sound as if someone had stepped on a particularly large and squishy bug sounded as both Kongs averted their eyes in disgust. When the floor had passed the seventh floor and Diddy opened his eyes again, the result was not pretty to behold.

"Sorry." Dixie said with a guilty expression. They each picked up one of Kutlass' swords, which had fallen clear of the walkway.

"We'll have to get out of here if we don't want to end up the same." Diddy said to breach the silence, and when the eigth floor came up, they opened the door. Unfortunatly, it just led to another tower where the floor was moving up. This one wasn't straight up with floors partially covering it every floor, though, but every now and then it would go horizontally for a while, and then bend back vertically again.

The roof of the tower came up rapidly, but it was clear even from as low as the Kongs were that the tower went on horizontally. "We'll have to run for it as fast as we can when we get there." Diddy said. Dixie nodded.

When the floor reached the horizontal bit, the Kongs dashed off, already seeing the next vertical part of the tower. Two not too bright looking Kremlings were in the way, though.

"Hey look, it's them!" one of them said, but the Kongs cartwheeled them in one movement with the running and reached the next vertical part. The rising floor crushed the two Kremlings.

A bit higher three doors approached. The Kongs were determined to try if any of them could get them out of the crushing tower, but when the floor reached the doors, three Kremlings walked out, intent on capturing the Kongs. The biggest Kremling slashed his sword at Diddy, who blocked with Kutlass' sword. The Kremling was a lot bigger and stronger than him, and Diddy could barely hold his ground. Their swords clashed numerous times, and each time Diddy blocked the strong Kremling's sword, the force of the blow felt as if he was punched.

"Hehehe, I should warn you little twerp: every enemy I've met, I've annihilated!" the Kremling growled.

"With your breath, I'm sure they all suffocated!" Diddy replied. The crocodile was enraged by this and tried to hit Diddy, and in his rage left a clear opening. Diddy dodged the Kremling's sword and stabbed him in the gut. Then he turned to Dixie, who had been driven into a corner by the two Kremlings she was fighting. Diddy ran up to one of them, saying:

"Hey ugly! When your father first saw you, he must have been mortified!"

The crocodile turned around to skewer Diddy with his sword. "At least mine can be identi-arg!" While he was turned away from her, Dixie stabbed her sword into his back. Now the two of them could concentrate on their single enemy. The Kremling seemed unfazed by the fact that he was outnumbered.

"Don't think you'll win because you're in the majority! Today, by myself, twelve Kremlings I've beaten!"

Dixie took one look at the Kremling's huge belly and said "From the size of your gut, I'd guess they were eaten."

The Kremling was momentarily surprised with that comeback, so the Kongs ran into a door that the floor had reached. It lead to a large room with metal chains hanging from the ceiling. On the other side of the door, they heard the gruesome sound of the Kremling getting crushed by the ceiling on the other side. Diddy shivered.

"I really hate that sound."

"Diddy, do you feel that?" Dixie asked.

"Er... No, I don't think I do."

"Exactly!" Dixie exclaimed happily. "The floor is not moving anymore, we escaped K. Rool's trap."

Now that she mentioned it, Diddy noticed it too. "You're right. Now let's get out of here before more Kremlings show up."

–

A scared, shivering Kremling entered K. Rool's throne room. K. Rool thought he was probably there to bring him bad news. Bringing bad news to their Kaptain was one of the most dangerous things a Kremling could do, but someone had to do it, so whenever there was bad news they usually forced one of them to report it to K. Rool. The current messenger was a pathetic, shivering creature, who walked in staring at the ground, not daring to look his Kaptain in the eyes.

"Um... Kaptain K. Rool, sir?" he said with shivering voice.

K. Rool looked at him. The pathetic Kremling stood right under the bound ape hanging from the ceiling. "Yes, what is it?" K. Rool said.

"Si-sir, I regret to report that through sheer mekanical failure and kompletely no fault of my own, the Kongs have eskaped into the chain-link chamber. They're being followed by all available men as we speak and we will have them kaptured in no time at all, so please don't get angry!" He held his head between his arms as if to protect it.

"Good, make sure they're kaptured. Now get lost!"

"Yes, sir!" the crocodile seemed surprised he was still alive, and left the throne room almost running.

K. Rool stood up from his throne. He had to have a word with his chief technician. He walked out the door of his throne room, and to his surprise the chief technician was right there, walking to K. Rool's throne room.

"There you are!" K. Rool said, "The Kongs have eskaped your trap."

The technician smiled. "Everything is going akkording to the plan, then?" he asked in his sly voice.

"Yes, I suppose it is, but it just feels wrong to have those Kongs wandering around in my Keep and not getting krushed."

"I know it feels wrong, but it is better that they avoided getting krushed. If they had been krushed, you might have had your fun and I wouldn't have to rekalibrate my trap, but we'd have to waste a lot more time to find the one we're looking for."

"I still want to kill them."

"I know you do, Kaptain, but you have to think about the long term here. If they are not the ones we're looking for, they will fail and either your men will katch them, or they will die in my sekond trap. If they are the ones we're looking for, you will also get to kill them, but you'll just have to wait a bit longer."

Unlike all the other Kremlings, the technician never seemed scared of K. Rool, and was never prone to groveling to him. He usually talked to the Kaptain as if he almost an equal. K. Rool considered it slightly insulting and had pondered getting rid of the man for it, but his inventions were useful enough to tolerate his manners.

"I suppose you're right." K. Rool grumbled.

"I usually am. I will make sure the Flying Krock and your gun are ready in kase they somehow manage to survive my sekond trap."

He saluted lazily and walked away.

–

Meanwhile the Kongs were climbing for their lives in the chain-link chamber. Loads of Kremlings were climbing after them, and loads more emerged from every door they passed. Occasionally either of the Kongs would shoot one with their peanut popgun and he would fall down and sometimes take others with him, but there were just too many of them for this to really work.

"Door!" Dixie shouted when she saw a door that didn't have Kremlings pouring out of it. They swung on the chain they were climbing and landed right in front of the metal door. They opened it, stepped through, and quickly pushed it shut. A 'click!' sounded as it fell in the lock, and lots of Kremling fists banged on the other side a moment later. The Kongs had entered a square room, not too big from side to side, but incredibly high, like the interior of a tower. In the middle of the room was a bassin with a green liquid. Stone stairways ran on each wall until the corner of the tower, where they turned and climbed on the next wall. They went round and round the tower many times in this manner, a bit like a square spiral staircase with a big hole in the middle, until they reached the top of the tower. Under each part of the stairway ornate stone crocodile heads were mounted. The Kongs rested for a minute to catch their breath.

"Phew..." Diddy panted, "looks like we managed to escape those Kremlings. If this tower goes all the way to the top, we could be very close."

Suddenly, more of the green liquid started pouring out of the mouth of the lowest crocodile statue. It splashes onto the ground and started widening the pool quickly.

"Do you suppose it's dangerous?" Dixie asked.

Diddy sighed. "Probably. I'll check." he threw a peanut next to the spreading pool of green liquid. As soon as the green liquid touched the peanut, it melted instantly and produced some hellish smoke.

"Run!" they both screamed, and started running up the stairs. The next crocodile started pouring toxin too, and by the time they reached the stairs above the first croc, a third one had started and the first five steps of the stairs had already been submerged into the liquid. A hellish smell filled the tower, a stench of death and burning things. Dixie looked up, and realised the rising level of toxin might not even be their greatest problem.

"Diddy! There's crocodiles above us too!" she said as the fourth croc started pouring, "the next one that starts is straight above the first bit of stairs, which is already submerged! If we're not fast enough, one might start pouring above us!"

The toxin was now rising very rapidly, new crocodiles started pouring barely two seconds after the Kongs ran under them. The toxin itself was only one flight of stairs below them, and rapidly rising.

To Dixie's horror, Diddy missed a stair and tripped just in front of her. She didn't lower her speed, but gave his hand a hard pull upwards as she passed him, helping him on his feet. While the toxin was only half a stairway under them now, they were nearing the top of the tower. At the top of the tower a corridor started. But there was no door in it, so the toxin would just follow them there. They ran into the corridor, and were relieved to see more stairs to keep them away from the toxin. After climbing the stairs and running through another short small corridor they climbed some more stairs. It appeared that, now that all the crocodiles were submerged in the toxin, it was rising more slowly, as it would have long since killed them if it had kept rising at its original speed. It was still very fast, though, and when they ran through the third corridor to another set of stairs Dixie shot a glance backwards and saw a wave of toxin already streaming into the corridor. In the middle of the fourth corridor, some Kremlings were playing cards on a table they had set up in the middle of the corridor.

"RUN!" Both Kongs screamed at them when they jumped on the table and then on one of the players' heads (Since the table blocked the entire hallway and this was the only way to pass it without slowing down). The Kremlings stood up confused, and Dixie tried not to listen to their horrifying screams behind her as she climbed up the fifth staircase. This staircase was a lot longer than the previous ones, and it allowed the Kongs to gain some distance from the toxin. When they reached the top of the stairs, however, there was no more way to get up. There were no stairs leading to the next floor, which was at least fifteen metres higher and the walls were too smooth too climb. It looked like there would normally be a ladder here, but K. Rool had probably removed it to prevent their escape.

Dixie stared at Diddy, eyes wide with fear.

"Dix, quick, get on my back! I'll throw you up!" he said.

_Thanks Diddy, I'll never forget your sacrifice,_ she thought.

_Hold on, I can't leave him behind._

_We'll never both get out of this. Like this, at least one of us lives._

_Could I live with the thought that I had left Diddy here to die, even if it was by his own choice? I would never see him again, never talk to him, never kiss him again. And my nightmares would probably be haunted by his screams as he melted until the end of my days._

"No way, I'm not leaving you behind!" she said.

"There's no time for this, at least I can save you!"

"I told you: I'm not leaving you behind. It doesn't matter anyway, as you couldn't throw me that high."

She couldn't see the toxin welling up the stairs yet, but she heard the sound of its rapid approach. She simply embraced Diddy. For the first time, she was certain she was going to die and had enough time to think about it. Even when the Zingers had captured her, she had never given up hope, knowing Diddy would try to save her. But now, he would die here in her arms. She shed a tear on Diddy's shoulder as she realised how cruel an irony it was that they would die so close to their destination. She expected this way of dying to be agonisingly painful, and wondered how long it would take for the pain to end.

"Dix, I have to tell you something." Diddy said in a defeated voice.

The toxin ran over the top of the stairs and gulfed their way. "Too late." She said with a soft, sad voice as she closed her eyes, expecting to feel incredible pain any moment as her flesh melted from her bones, but instead she just felt a sharp, stabbing pain in her shoulder. She looked up in surprise, and saw a green parrot holding her.

"Squawks!" Both Kongs said his name with incredible glee.

"Am I glad to see you, you saved us! Thank you!" Diddy said.

"You two should really try not to get in these situations anymore," Squawk said, "next time I might not be near. Funky says hi, by the way. I helped him repair his plane after I helped you two out in the mine, bringing him water and food and things like that. When I left him to see if you needed any help, he was nearly done fixing the plane."

As they flew up through the tower, they passed some Kremlings. One of them shouted something, and they threw their knives. Squawks screeched in pain as a knife hit him in the wing. The next moment his yell was joined by the yells of the Kremlings as the toxin caught up with them.

Squawks managed to keep flying, and a minute later they reached the ceiling of the tower. At last, there was a big steel door in the corridor here. The Kongs opened the door and slammed it shut just before the toxin reached them. Exhausted and wounded, Squawk fell on the floor.

"Are you alright?" Diddy asked worried. The Kongs turned Squawk around and took a look at the wound. It wasn't so bad, as Squawk had only been grazed by the knife.

"You two go on." he panted, "I'm mainly just very tired. I'm going to rest here. K. Rool's throneroom should be very close."

The Kongs both thanked Squawk again, held a peanut popgun in one hand and a sword in the other, and walked into the hall. All the other halls in the castle were grim and grey, but a big chandelier that had been hung up with much more rope than was needed hung in the middle of this hall, giving a somewhat cozy atmosphere. The hall split into two ways. The Kongs tried the left way first. Only a single door was in this corridor, but immediately after opening it they realised this wasn't K. Rool's throneroom. It was dark except for a mysterious glowing portal and was guarded by a huge muscular Kremling.

"Kudgel?" Dixie asked the huge Kremling.

"ARR, Kudgel be me brother! Me be Klubba!" the huge thing said, "Me be guarding the Lost World for the Kap'n, an' if ye be thinkin' of tryin' ter get past me, I'll flay ye with the cat o' nine tails, ye scabberous swabs!"

"No, that's quite alright. We'll be going now." Diddy said and they left the room.

They walked to the other side of the hallway. In this corridor, the first door they reached was a huge ornate door. They opened it and entered K. Rool's throne room. Neither K. Rool nor Donkey Kong was in the empty throne room. K. Rool's voice boomed amplified from the speakers:

"You didn't think it would be that easy, did you? Let's see you get past Kerozene!"

For some strange reason, Dixie _had_ actually expected it to be that easy. A huge tearing sound thundered and the throne room was torn off the castle, leaving just its floor behind, by the largest Kremling she had ever seen.

If Dixie would have had to describe Kerozene in one word, it would've been 'huge'. If she'd had to describe him in two words it would've been 'incredibly huge'. Kerozene was an immense fire-red Kremling with a dragon-like head the size of a bus. His hands were larger than elephants, holding swords as large as Kleever had been. His gargantuan mouth was filled with razor-sharp teeth that were each as big as Dixie herself. He towered far above them, even though he wasn't even standing on the castle's roof but somewhere lower. A crocodile shaped aeroplane was flying away in the sky. At the moment, it was still close, as Kerozene could probably grab it right out of the air if he wanted to, but it was flying away rapidly.

Kerozene slashed his huge swords at the Kongs, and Dixie instinctively blocked with her own, but to no avail: the force of the blow shattered the sword and blew her away, landing painfully hard against a merlon. The air was pushed out of her lungs and her back hurt terribly. Diddy, however, jumped over the slashing sword and shot Kerozene several times with his peanut popgun, but the gargantuan didn't even seem to notice. Dixie tried to get up to help Diddy, but her back hurt badly and she had trouble even standing up.

Kerozene slashed his two blades at Diddy, who rolled and jumped to dodge them. Then he aimed his popgun at Kerozene's eyes and shot several peanuts. The huge creature howled in pain, but it still seemed to be able to see them, as it slashed two swords at Diddy and opened his mouth, spitting fire at Dixie at the same time. Dixie had managed to get up, and ran for her life from the inferno Kerozene created. She barely managed to get out of the way and felt the fiery heat of his breath behind her.

Not even Kerozene's eyes were weak enough spots to attack, but there had to be some way of defeating it. Dixie looked up at the departing Flying Krock. An idea popped into her head.

"Diddy!" she screamed at Diddy, who dodged Kerozene's swords by falling flat onto the ground so they passed over him, "I have an idea, but you'll have to keep Kerozene busy!"

She ran back into the castle. _Rope!_ She thought desperately, _I need a rope!_ She ran into the corridor that linked what had previously been K. Rool's throneroom with the room guarded by Klubba, and saw that the chandelier was hung up to the wall with a way too long rope via a pulley. She ran to the wall and began to untie the chandelier.

"Hey, you! What do you think you're doing?" a voice behind her called, and she heard something with one normal leg and one pegleg run towards her, "Quit that immediately, that's dange- AAAAAH!" the Kremling said as Dixie untied the knot and the chandelier fell on top of him. She rushed to the chandelier, pulled all of the excessively large rope through the pulley, and untied it. Then she ran back outside, where Diddy was in big trouble. Kerozene had thrown his swords aside and was now playing handclap to try and squish Diddy like an annoying insect.

Dixie stuffed the end of the rope into the barrel of her peanut popgun and aimed at the Flying Kroc, which was flying away faster and faster. _I hope this works, or this thing will blow up in my face,_ she thought as she fired. The end of the rope flew away, a bit over the Flying Kroc, wrapped itself around the plane, and its end ended up twisted into the propeller of the plane. As the plane was rapidly moving away from the keep, the part of the rope that was still here was getting smaller and smaller, so she didn't have much time.

"HEY! Pudding-for-brains! I'm right here, come and get me!" she screamed at Kerozene. Kerozene opened his huge jaws, roared, and thrusted his head at her. She ran to the left holding the end of the rope, and was nearly knocked off her feet by the tremor as Kerozene's gigantic jaws hit the floor barely a metre behind her. She jumped up onto his spiked neck, jumped off at the other side, and tried to tie the end of the rope to the part that was still at the other end of Kerozene's neck. Kerozene lifted his head, but she didn't let go of the rope and tied it close around his throat. She jumped off and hit the floor hard next to Diddy.

Kerozene opened his huge maw to spit fire at them. The Kongs ran away, but he just turned his head to make the fire follow them. Suddenly the fire stopped coming as the rope tightened around his neck. The Kongs looked around and saw that the rope, which had lost all its slack now that the Flying Kroc was far away, was choking Kerozene. Apparently K. Rool hadn't noticed the rope around his plane and Kerozene's neck, as he didn't stop but flew on. Kerozene made several choking noises, but the plane tugged so hard at his neck that he lost his balance and fell backwards, off the Keep, into the depths.

"I hope he doesn't land on anyone." Dixie said.

"Good job, Dix!" Diddy said with glee. "Now we must follow the Flying Krock! Let's get Squawks!"

The ran into the Keep, down the corridor where Squawk was resting.

"Squawks, K. Rool is getting away! We must follow him!" Diddy said.

"All right, I think I'm rested enough to carry you two! Come on!"

He grabbed them, and they flew out of the Keep after the Flying Krock.

–

AUTHOR'S NOTES: The longest chapter so far took the shortest time to write. Funny, isn't it? I guess it's because it was also the most fun to write of them all. I hope I can keep this momentum up and get chapter 9 done quickly.

I dislike most of the changes made to the game in the GBA port, but I do like Kerozene. I remember how annoyed I was the first time I played Donkey Kong Country 2, had just finished the thoughest region of them all, saw the boss level was named 'Stronghold Showdown', entered it, and basically got "A winner is you! On to the next region!". What an awful anticlimax.

All the swordfighting insults come from the Monkey Island games.

In this chapter I really had to pay attention to circumvent the site's awful spam filter. The problem is this: If you don't leave a space after a period, but type the next word right away, the moronic spamfilter assumes you're trying to make a link and deletes both words. Whenever I write "K. Rool", my instinct is not to use the space, but that automatically deletes the name. (Leading to "They looked up at 's Keep")

Now that I'm nearing the end of this fic, I've been considering a sequel. It won't be based on Donkey Kong Country 3, DK 64, or DKC Returns. I fact, I'm not even sure yet if I'll write it at all. More about this at the end of the final chapter (whenever that is).


	9. The Flight of the Flying Krock

Chapter Nine: The Flight of the Flying Krock

Kaptain K. Rool bounced around in the Flying Krock's hangar as the ship gave an enormous jolt. He landed hard on the floor when the violent movement finally ended.

"What in blazes happened?" he mumbled as he stood up and ran back to the cockpit. He looked out the window and saw an unexpected view: The Flying Krock had been pulled back by a long rope that had somehow attached itself to the plane. He was at the outskirts of a thick cluster of brambles on the island's southern side. The rope was entangled in the thorny cluster. What was the most surprising of all, though, was what was on the other end of the rope: a gigantic corpse laying at the foot of his Keep.

_Impressive,_ he couldn't help thinking.

"Well Kong," he said to his prisoner, who was as dazed by the violent movement as the Kaptain himself, "it looks like your buddy Billy has more tricks up his sleeve than I thought. I'll have to get that rope off my aeroplane, so I'm gonna land to kut it." He talked to DK like this because he was the only one in the room, and the Kaptain generally thought better aloud. "On the other hand, that would take a while, and Diffy could be here real soon if he has found some way to fly. I think I have a better way."

He pushed the button that would have the plane broadcast his voice, massively amplified, and spoke: "Kreatures of the bramble... Kluster... Foresty... Thing! I am Kaptain K. Rool, and my plane got tied down by a rope running through your... Whatever you kall that. Any kreature that unties or kuts the rope will get my weight in gold as their reward!"

"Hahahar, now I just have to wait until we're loose."

–

Icy cold wind blew in Diddy's face as Squawks flew after the Flying Krock at top speed. They knew it was only a matter of minutes before K. Rool would have untied or cut the rope, and if it happened they'd have no hope of ever catching up as his plane was of course much faster than Squawks. Apparently Kerozene's fall had pulled the plane into a bramble forest on the other side of the mountain. As Squawks approached the forest, K. Rool's voice, amplified enormously, sounded.

"Kreatures of the bramble... Kluster... Foresty... Thing! I am Kaptain K. Rool, and my plane got tied down by a rope running through your... Whatever you kall that. Any kreature that unties or kuts the rope will get my weight in gold as their reward!"

"_His_ weight in gold?" Diddy remarked, "He must be feeling very generous today."

Dixie sniggered, but Squawks flapped on in a determined silence. It seemed carrying the two of them while flying at top speed was very exhausting for him, as he had started panting again.

Following the rope, they entered the bramble forest. Large sharp thorns surrounded the Kongs and Squawks, but altough they frequently missed them only narrowly, Squawks seemed to know what he was doing as they never actually hit anything.

After a while, they saw a black falcon trying to use his dagger-like beak to cut the rope. As soon as he saw Squawks he flew up and followed them.

"Hey! Where do you think you're going, greenhorn?" the falcon said, "I'm the one who's gonna get that gold, or my name isn't Screech!"

"So why are you wasting time talking to us instead of cutting it?" Diddy couldn't help but wonder.

"The rope's too thick to cut here. But it looks damaged at the plane itself, so I'll cut it there! And you won't beat me there!"

"Don't worry about us," Squawks called, "we're not interested in the gold. We're the people K. Rool is fleeing from!"

"In that case I'd better make sure I get there before you!" Screech screeched. He dived, sinking his claws into Squawks' side. The parrot screeched in pain, but Screech had sprinted away before he had a chance to retaliate. "That reward's as good as mine! Smell ya later, greenhorn!" Screech shouted.

Blood leaked from Squawks' wounds onto the Kongs.

"Are you alright?" Dixie asked startled.

Squawks didn't say anything, but looked furious, accelerated to even faster speeds in pursuit of Screech.

Diddy drew his peanut popgun. "I'll get that jerk." He aimed with his free hand and fired, but the popgun only made a "click!"

Diddy looked at the popgun. "Why does that always happen at the worst possible moment?" he asked.

"Don't worry, I think I still have ammunition." Dixie aimed her popgun at Screech, but she too got a "click!"

"Huh. What are the odds?" Dixie said incredulously.

Squawk flapped his wings as fast as he could in furious pursuit of Screech. Their speed, coupled with how reckless he was flying now, caused the Kongs to be scratched by smaller bramble branches several times, and almost be hit by larger ones. When they finally caught up with Screech, Squawks dove into him and tore some feathers out with his beak.

"So you _can_ fly like a real bird, greenhorn? I hadn't thought it possible with such a plump body." Screech taunted as he prepared to attack Squawks again.

Diddy drew Kutlass' sword and pointed it at Screech. "Attack Squawks again, and you'll regret it."

Screech laughed. "Hey, greenhorn, there's some parasites hangin' on to you! What does your mate think about that? Never mind answering that, I'll ask her myself when I return to my nest!"

He flew above Squawks to attack him without getting within reach of Diddy. When he dived, Squawk made a sudden evasive manoeuvre, causing Screech to narrowly miss him and hit several thorny branches, screeching in pain as he got entangled in them.

"Good job, Squawks! I think we're nearly there!" Diddy said.

Now that Screech was defeated, Squawks looked very tired. His wounds seemed to be catching up with him as he flew rather slow and clumsily, and his skin was so pale that Diddy could see it through his feathers. His breath was very fast and ragged. Fortunately they emerged from the brambles and were within sight of the Flying Krock. Its back hangar was open, and with his last strength Squawks managed a half-hard landing in the hangar's corner before passing out from sheer exhaustion.

"You did great, Squawks." Diddy said to him. Then the ship shuddered and started moving: Screech had cut the rope.

Most of the plane consisted of the hangar, which held several barrels, chests, and a couple of huge bananas. At the front of the plane, the hangar transited into the cockpit, which held two large chairs turned away from the Kongs. In each chair a familiar figure sat: one fat, green, and in a pirate coat, the other bound, brown, and muscular.

"We've got you!" Dixie said to K. Rool.

"You can't run from us anymore, K. Rool!" Diddy said, "We've caught up with you, flight is no more option!"

The crocodile turned his chair around. He was wielding a gigantic gun and had an insane smile on his face. "If flight is no option, I guess I'll have to fight!"

"We're not scared of you." Dixie said despite the gun, "Diddy defeated you before, he can do it again, and this time I'm here too."

"Brave words, lass, but they won't save you! I've got you now, Putty Kong and..." He squinted his non-twitching eye and tilted his head looking at Dixie. "...Just who the hell are you?"

"My name is Dixie Kong. And his name is not Putty, but Diddy."

"Well then, Pixie Kong, I have no kwarrel with you, and I don't know why you have one with me, so if you surrender now and don't bother me while I kill Dudley here, I'll let you live."

"Not a chance!" Dixie said determined, "I came on this adventure to help Diddy. I'm not about betray him at the last minute!"

As she defied K. Rool like this, Diddy realised just how much he liked her. He couldn't help but smile, and gnawties ran around in his stomach like they had had too much coffee.

_I should keep my head on the upcoming fight,_ he thought, _it would be an incredibly cruel irony if Dixie ended up dead because I got too distracted by being head over heels in love with her._

"On your own head be it, then." K. Rool said furiously, "Tuffy and Styxie Kong, you two are a nuiscance. I haven't had the pleasure of seeing you krushed, dekapitated, melted, or eaten by Kerozene, but killing you personally will make up for that."

"That's enough talking, K. Rool, surrender now or prepare to fight." Diddy said as intimidating as he could.

K. Rool laughed. "Surrender? I'm the one holding the gun! Prepare to die!"

Diddy drew his sword, but K. Rool fired his gun immediately. A huge, spiky cannonball flew straight at Diddy, leaving him no time to dodge. In the split second he had, he could only put his sword in the cannonball's way. The sword shattered when the cannonball hit it, and Diddy was blown backwards.

"Haharr, that is kwite impressive! Let's see what this button does!" he fired, and the gun launched a whole barrage of cannonballs, though with low speed, as they immediately fell to the ground. Strangely, though, they bounced. Fortunately Squawks didn't lie in their path, but three were coming at Dixie. She jumped over one, rolled to dodge another, and ran under the third as it bounced. Diddy rolled to dodge several more cannonballs.

"What does this button do?" K. Rool said before the Kongs had a chance to approach, and several more cannonballs were released from the gun, but these had an even more bizarre flight path than the once before: they flew in circles while making a weird fluting noise. Both Kongs managed to dodge these too, but before they could try to get closer to K. Rool, he had fired another shot. This time it was a weird blue ball of light, that moved so fast Diddy couldn't dodge it. Instead of the pain he expected, he didn't feel anything. He tried to walk, but his legs didn't respond. He tried to warn Dixie, but neither his lungs, nor his vocal cords, nor his mouth responded. He couldn't even move his eyes.

"Haharr, now that be a good button! Now I kan shoot you easily without having you run all over the place!" K. Rool laughed as he aimed his gun for Diddy once more.

"Not while I'm still standing, you won't!" Dixie shouted as she slapped K. Rool with her hair, jumped up on his head, and began to pound him.

"Arg, get off of me, you stinkin' monkey!" K. Rool said as he tried to slap her away from him, but Dixie was too fast for him. When Diddy's feeling finally started coming back, K. Rool managed to hit Dixie with a backhand, launching her off of him back into the hangar. Diddy managed to move again, and K. Rool pressed another button. The gun made a sound like a huge vacuüm cleaner and a fierce hurricane of wind filled the plane, blowing towards the gun. Both Kongs tried to run away, but the wind was so strong they could accomplish no more than to slow their movement. Squawks, lying all the way in the corner, was only moving slowly.

"Haharr, now that is a good button! Let's see how you'll like being me ammuntion!" K. Rool's voice was barely audible over the hurricane.

Diddy had an idea. "Dix! I'll need your help to jump as high as I can!" he shouted to Dixie who was a bit closer to the Kaptain.

"Ok!" as she ducked.

Diddy turned around and ran at Dixie, accelerated to high speed immediately by the wind. The moment he reached her, he jumped on her back and jumped again as she jumped, launching him extra high. Accelerated by the wind, he flew towards K. Rool at high speed. He flew just over the gun and kicked K. Rool in the face at high velocity. The reptile was knocked backwards and Diddy landed on his face. It was only a moment before Dixie joined him. They smiled triumphantly.

K. Rool looked furious. "ARR, do you stinking apes think you've won? You may have saved Donkey Kong, but my plans for the Lost World are far to near kompletion to be messed up!" he pushed a button on the gun, which Diddy had thought had fallen out of his hands, and a hatch opened right under him. The Kongs jumped off just in time to prevent falling out of the plane along with him. They saw K. Rool fall into the depths, until he stuck the gun in the air and fired a parachute from it. He drifted back to his Keep in the distance.

After a momentary disappointment that their enemy had escaped, Diddy realised they were victorious. "We- We did it!" he could hardly believe it.

Dixie embraced him and said with a radiant smile and gleaming eyes: "We won, Diddy! Can you believe it? We saved Donkey Kong, and it took us only six days!"

"Speaking of me, would you please untie me now?" Donkey Kong said faintly from the chair.

Diddy walked over to untie DK, while Dixie moved Squawks into the second seat. DK looked as if he had been beaten up, and was missing a bit of his finger, but was alright apart from that. "Thanks, Diddy. Thanks, Trixie. I didn't think you had it in you, but you defeated that ugly crock. I owe you both a lot of banana milkshakes."

Dixie looked annoyed. "It's Dixie, actually."

"Sorry." DK looked a bit embarrased.

"It's great to see you again, DK! You won't believe how big an adventure we went through to save you! There was lava, and Zingers, and an insane ghost bird with a vendetta against Dixie, and-"

DK interrupted him. "I'd love to hear about it all later, little buddy, but I think we should try to get this plane off the autopilot so we can get it back to DK Island."

Suddenly a shock went through the plane. "K. Rool, you uncool croc! Surrender and hand over my man DK, or I'll shoot ya again!" Funky's voice sounded.

Diddy pressed the voice amplifier. "Funky, good to hear you! We captured the ship already, and DK is alright! Come on over, we'll need your help flying this thing!"

Funky landed his barrel plane in the hangar of the much larger Flying Krock. He tried to do a complicated handshake with each of the other three Kongs, but none of them kept up with him, so he ended up looking rather silly. He took the ship off autopilot and sat in the pilot's seat, while Sqauwks slowly recovered.

"Well dudes," Funky said, "looks like we won. Let's fly this thing back home!"

"Wait Funky," Diddy said, "K. Rool said something about plans for a 'Lost World'."

"I think I overheard him talking about that to a Kremling with a sly voice." DK said, "He kept me tied up hanging from the ceiling of his throne room, so I couldn't see anything but his ceiling, but I always heard K. Rool talking to the Kremlings. Most of it was pretty uninteresting, but that stuff about this 'Lost World' sounded interesting so I tried to remember as much of it as I could."

"What did they say?" Diddy asked enthusiastically.

"Something K. Rool wants is in that Lost World. But he couldn't get it yet, as he needed something he didn't have. But then, the guy with the sly voice asked K. Rool if they should be having that discussion where I could hear them, and they left."

While a part of Diddy wanted to go home and relax on the beach (Preferably with Dixie, but lazily hanging around on his own sounded good too), he was very curious about this Lost World now, and just couldn't let it go. "I think we passed the entrance to this Lost World in the Keep. I am going there, to explore this Lost World and foil K. Rool's plan, whatever it is. Dixie, do you feel up to another adventure?"

"No." she said firmly. Diddy's mouth fell open with surprise. "I've had it with exploring bizarre places, I've had it with the fighting and running, I've had it with my life being in constant peril, I've had it with burning heat and freezing cold, and I've had it with my hair getting dirty. I'll be happy if nothing remotely exciting ever happens to me again."

Diddy had no idea she felt this way. "R-really?"

She grinned. "No, I'm just kidding. Let's follow that crocodile."

Both of them burst into laughter. When they had stopped laughing, Diddy asked DK "DK, will you join us?"

DK thought about it for a moment, and then replied, "No. Sorry little buddy, but it wasn't easy being imprisoned by K. Rool. What I need most now is to just relax and eat bananas for a while. Besides, you two managed to save me, so I doubt you'll need my help on this adventure."

Diddy had hoped DK would join them, but understood his reasons for not doing so.

"Alright, then. Funky, drop us off on the Keep's roof before you fly to DK Isle. We're flying in K. Rool's own plane, so there shouldn't be any trouble."

–

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Another chapter done quickly. It's a bit of a short one, but it's practically just an appetiser for the final chapter: "The Legendary Lost World". Unlike what some reviewers seemed to think, this is not the final chapter yet.

READERS' QUESTIONS:

Q: Chuckles the Great: I don't remember anyone by the name of kerozene, was that only for the GBA?

A: Kerozene is the boss for K. Rool's Keep they added to the game in the GBA version. He's a pretty cool and difficult boss, so I included him in the fic.


	10. The Legendary Lost World

Chapter Ten: The Legendary Lost World

The Flying Krock lifted off immediately after Diddy and Dixie disembarked. They had no time to wave goodbye to Funky and Donkey as K. Rool might have alerted his men that the Flying Krock had been captured. The Kongs entered the Keep, sneaking as quietly as they could and looking around every corner before going around it. They emerged into the corridor between what had been K. Rool's throne room and the portal to the Lost World. They walked past the fallen, ropeless chandelier when Dixie suddenly stopped and turned around.

"What is it?" Diddy whispered.

"I think I heard something behind us." she whispered back.

Both stood still listening, but they heard nothing. "We should check out that corner to be sure." Dixie whispered.

They took a careful look around the corner, but saw nothing except a bit of corridor with an old carpet featuring a portrait of K. Rool. The Kongs returned to the portal room, but now both had the unpleasant feeling they were being followed. They entered the room, still guarded by the enormous Klubba.

"What d'ye want, ye scruffy apes? The Kap'n told me to not let anone through, especially anyone furry!" Klubba said.

"It's okay," Diddy bluffed, "The Kaptain told us to go into the Lost World. We're to stand guard on the other side of this portal in ca- in kase those stinking Kongs get past you."

Klubba squinted. "The Kap'n didn't tell me about any new guards, and ye be lookin' like stinkin' Kongs to me."

"That's eksaktly the point of this disguise. If those skurvy Kongs enter the Lost World, we will trick them into thinking we are Kongs like them."

"Ye be disguised as Kongs? Ye be lookin' like real ones to me. And how come no one told me ye'd need to get into the Lost World?"

Diddy snorted smugly. "Obviously you're not high enough in rank to know about it! These orders kome direktly from the Kaptain, so let us through or suffer his wrath!"

"If ye really be disguised, let's see ye take off the disguise. If ye really be Kremlings, show me."

Diddy bit his lip nervously. "Uh... We c-kan't. You see, these disguises are made to be usable only once, to prevent people stealing them and using them against the Kaptain." He shot a glance at Dixie, only to notice she'd left the room without either of them noticing.

Klubba squited his little eyes. "I think yer lying!"

"No, really, I'm a Kremling like you!" Diddy said as Klubba swung his club threateningly.

Dixie suddenly burst into the room, black smoke following her. "FIRE! FIRE! Someone set the toxic trap on fire! Klubba, you must go help extinguish the fire right now, or the toxin could-kould melt the whole Keep and everyone in it!"

Klubba looked startled. "ARR, I'd like to help, but the Kap'n ordered me to be guardin' this here portal!"

"We'll guard it for you while you go help with the fire!" Dixie said.

"Fine, but don't be lettin' anyone in an' don't tell anyone, especially not the Kap'n."

"All right, we promise." Dixie said.

"Watch out for the guy in red. I think he be a Kong." Klubba whispered to her as he left teh room.

"Quick, let's get to the portal before he sees I just set that carpet on fire." Dixie said. They stepped into the portal and bright light engulfed them.

–

"The Kongs have fooled your guard and entered the Lost World, Kaptain." a sly voice spoke from K. Rool's walkie-talkie.

"Eksellent, I knew they'd fall for my trap. Is Donkey Kong with them or is it just Kirby and Vixie?" K. Rool asked.

"Just the two small ones."

"I'll get that lumbering fool Donkey Kong later, then." he put the walkie-talkie away. "Krusha!"

The huge Kremling showed up immediately and saluted. "Yes, Kaptain?"

"Dopey and Buzzy Kong have followed us into the Lost World. Take twenty men with you and hand me their heads, or I'll hand you yours."

The huge Kremling saluted again. "Sir, yes, sir!"

–

After the flash of light dissipated, a wave of tropical heat hit the Kongs. The gloomy interior of the castle was gone, and now they saw an amazing view. They were standing on a forested hill in a jungle that seemed to cover everything in sight, except a mountain shaped like a crocodile head in the distance. A huge beam of energy shot right up into the sky from the crocodile head. It looked like the mountain was about a day's traveling away.

"If I were K. Rool," Diddy said pointing at the crocodile head, "That's where I would go."

Dixie nodded. "Let's go there. It will be a nice change to be in a jungle again."

A huge rumbling noise echoed through the entire Lost World and tremors shaked the earth itself. Diddy had to pinch himself to check he was not dreaming: in front of their disbelieving eyes, in the middle of the jungle, five mountains grew from the ground like mushrooms. Trees that stood on the ground that was now part of the mountains fell over and rolled down the growing slopes, though some managed to keep standing on their new footing. Rivers started flowing from the emerging mountain range into the jungle. Three minutes later, the tremors and rumbling stopped and a new mountain range was born. The Kongs didn't say a word or moved a muscle for at least ten minutes, just staring at the miracle.

"Incredible." Diddy finally said.

"I wonder how often that happens." Dixie said, "It could be very dangerous if it happens a lot. I wouldn't like to be among all those trees that rolled off the mountains."

Diddy hadn't considered that yet. "I guess we'll just find out when we traverse this place. It could be an incredibly rare one-time occurrence that we just happened to witness, or it could be normal for this place and happen every fifteen minutes."

They descended the hill and entered the jungle. The sounds of birds and other small animals were everywhere, giving the place a lively atmosphere. The Kongs were on their guard for large animals, Kremlings, and most importantly the land itself. It wasn't long before a massive rumbling sound echoeing through the jungle and massive tremors announced the land coming to life again. The tremors were so strong this time they knocked both Kongs off their feet and uprooted several trees. Diddy sank down, while Dixie rose up into the air. He stood up and jumped, and just managed to grab Dixies hand and climb onto the rising ground she was standing on before the ground he had stood upon a moment ago sank away into the depths. They ran away from the edge as well as they could with the huge tremors shaking the earth. After a minute, the landscape had changed completely.

They were no longer in the middle of a wide jungle, they were at the edge of a forested cliff overlooking a deep canyon. A newly formed river from the newly formed mountains flowed deep through the canyon.

"Wow." Diddy said.

"What a bizarre place," Dixie said, "The geography is as ephemeral as the weather here. You know, it almost feels as if the land is alive."

"Can you imagine living here?" Diddy asked.

Dixie thought for a moment. "No, I can't. But that does raise another problem: how are we going to sleep here? I was kind of hoping we might sleep once a day now, but I guess we'll eventually get used to 48 hour days."

"Whenever the land changes it always makes a lot of noise, noise that would wake us up and warn us if we were sleeping. I'd say we could risk it. It would probably be safer than to walk around this place in the dark."

They continued on towards the crocodile mountain along the cliff. So close to the canyon was not the safest place to be, but nowhere really seemed safe in the Lost World, and the cliff headed straight in the direction of the crocodile head. As they followed the cliff, they heard the loud rumbling noise twice more, but nothing near them seemed to change.

As midday turned to evening and the Sun sank lower in the sky, the rumble sounded very loudly, and when the tremors came the cliffs rapidly sank into the canyon. The Kongs ran away from the canyon into the jungle on the cliff, but even there the ground was sinking down rapidly. The ground behind them sank faster than the ground in front of them, making the land slowly turn diagonal. Running against the continually steeper slope was harder and harder, as the tremors now uprooted trees and loosened rocks that came rolling down. Dixie had to jump aside out of a rock's way, and they had to crawl under fallen trees.

After a while, the tremors stopped and a massive crash of thunder sounded. A huge, anvil-shaped cumulonimbus cloud, so full of rain that it was almost purple, had appeared overhead and unleashed a torrential rain. Every single droplet was almost the size of a golfball, and within seconds Diddy and Dixie were completely soaked. Streams flowed down the diagonal slope all around them, eroding the ground and making it even harder to climb out of the newly formed valley. Diddy looked behind him, and saw the valley filling up with water. Whole uprooted trees floated and the waterlevel was rising rapidly. Dodging a falling tree, they reached horizontal ground at last. The Kongs looked back at the newly formed lake as the torrential rain stopped as suddenly as it had started. Near the edges treetops of trees still standing underwater breached the surface, and a lot of uprooted trees floated in the middle of the lake. The huge cloud dissolved as rapidly as it had appeared and the setting Sun shone its red light over the lake.

"Whew." Diddy said.

"You know," Dixie said, "we really should try to get as far away from that lake as possible. If it turns into a mountain-"

"-And it's almost guaranteed it will-" Diddy added.

"-that's a lot of water that needs to go somewhere. And we'd better be far away from that somewhere."

They walked away from the lake through the jungle. It was slowly getting darker, until night fell completely. The Kongs climbed in a large tree and each sat on a large branch next to each other, leaning on the tree.

Dixie took off her baret and ran her hand through her hair. "Yuck, I think I need to brush my hair. There's still little bits of spider web in it."

"Well, give me your brush and I'll help you." Diddy offered. Dixie gave her brush, which looked pretty damaged, several bristles broken or completely gone. "What happened to it?"

Dixie answered as he starting brushing her hair with the damaged brush. "Remember when we were fighting Krow and I jumped into a fold in the sail? I didn't have much grip on the wet sail, so I used the brush to stab through the sail and have some grip on it."

Diddy laughed. "That's quite some brush. No wonder it got damaged."

"Can you believe it?" Dixie said after a while, "We're actually going to be sleeping two nights in a row."

Diddy grinned. "Don't get your hopes up too much, though. Before you know it, we'll be awakened by a rumbling sound as this jungle turns into a mountain or something."

Diddy brushed Dixie's hair in silence for a while until she broke the silence. "You know, I've got to admit that this world is a really pretty place. The formation of those cliffs and the lake was rather troubled, but the end result looked very nice."

"'End result'?" Diddy asked, "Those cliffs have already disappeared, and I'll bet the lake will be gone by the morning too. That makes me think: we were the first, and probably the last people who ever saw them. I'd say that makes us explorers, and means we get to name them."

Dixie smiled. "Did you have any names in mind?"

Diddy thought for a moment, then knew one good name. "Lake Dixie. It is very pretty, but destroyed a whole forest when it got angry."

Dixie laughed and blushed. "Not a bad name."

Dixie's hair was done brushing, so they decided to go to sleep.

"Good night, Diddy, and let's hope my namesake doesn't come washing over this forest."

"Good night, Dix."

–

Diddy woke up feeling incredibly cold. _So it was all just a dream, _he thought disappointedly, _we still have to attack K. Rool's Keep. We didn't save DK, and we never went into any 'Lost World'. I guess I should've realised it was a dream when those mountains just popped up from the ground. Still, Lake Dixie was a pretty good name._

Diddy opened his eyes. He was buried almost to his head in snow. _How did this get in here?_ He looked up, and didn't see the inside of the ice cave, but grey clouds. He also saw the top of a leafless tree. _So it wasn't a dream!_ It had just started snowing while they were asleep. It had snowed so much, apparently, that the snow came to the high branches of the tree. Diddy looked at Dixie, and saw she was almost completely buried in the snow too.

"Wake up, Dix. It looks like the Lost World decided to play a little prank on us."

"Whazrong?" She asked drowsily, then she noticed she was buried in snow. "Huh? Snow?"

"Yeah, snow." Diddy said. "Let's go, before we're too cold to walk. The snow may melt soon if we're lucky."

They set out across the barren landscape. Though the snow was metres deep, they didn't sink into it very deeply. The landscape was littered with half-buried trees that had lost all their leaves overnight. No sign of Lake Dixie remained: it had probably frozen over and got covered in snow.

They were still heading for the crocodile shaped mountain in the distance through the snow-covered land when a massive rumbling sounded, and tremors so big they could be felt through the snow shocked the landscape. The snow began to rise up rapidly, as the ground underneath rose. Dixie shouted something Diddy couldn't make out over the noise. The snow started sliding down the forming mountain, but before the avalanche took Diddy with it he grabbed a rock that poked through the snow with both arms. Dixie dived for the rock too, but barely missed it. Diddy grabbed her hand, and just in time as the snow she stood upon slid down the slope forming an avalanche, and she was now hanging in midair from his hand as the rock rapidly rose up and became part of a forming precipice. It was a good thing Dixie wasn't very heavy. The enormous tremors continued, but Diddy didn't let go of either the rock or Dixie. Far below snow and trees rolled down the growing slopes of the mountain in a gigantic avalanche. The tremors had broken up the ice on Lake Dixie in the distance.

After a few minutes, the trembling stopped. The Kongs now hung from a high precipice on the side of the mountain. Diddy looked down and saw Dixie dangling above the depths.

"Are you alright, Dix?" he asked.

She looked down and back up again. "I... I'm fine. Thanks for grabbing my hand, it wouldn't have been pretty if I had been a part of that avalanche."

"I don't like this mountain much."

"We'll call it Mt. Rool, then. Can you climb up?"

"Not without a free hand, and both of them are rather busy at the moment. Are there any other rocks you can grab down there?"

"It's just one big piece of rock down here with no place to grab. Maybe I could hold your feet instead of your hand?"

"I'll need both feet too, from the looks of these rocks. Try climbing over me."

Dixie climbed up by grabbing Diddy's waist and shoulders, and then onto the rocks. Now that she didn't hang on to him anymore, climbing was difficult but possible. Both Kongs safely made it to a plateau littered with large rocks. The dark opening of a cave gaped to their right.

"There they are, men! Get them!"

Lots of Kremlings appeared from behind the rocks. A few of them were very big, and Diddy remembered from his first adventure that those were bad news, as he wasn't strong or heavy enough to defeat them, and Dixie probably wasn't either. No Kremlings blocked the way into the caves, though.

"Quick, Dix! Into the cave!"

The Kongs ran into the cave, and immediately lost all grip on the ground. What they'd thought was black stone was actually pitch-black ice. The cave sloped downwards, causing the Kongs to rapidly slide deeper into the cave, Kremlings still after them. In the dark cave it was hard to see, so it came as a surprise when the cave split in five smaller tunnels. Diddy immediately reached for Dixie's hand and pulled her close to him, so they went into the same tunnel. A few Kremlings got into the same tunnel as them, most of them slid into wrong tunnels.

The tunnel was very small, feeling rather like sliding through a water slide. It went deep down into the mountain, and eventually launched the Kongs into a large cave of black ice. Three Kremlings popped into the cave moments later. They didn't look very threathening.

"Three of you against two of us, that's not fair." Dixie said, "Get five of your buddies so it'll be even."

"HA!" One of the Kremlings responded, "we're not scared of two little monkeys, one of whom is a girl!"

A couple of cartwheels later they were unconcious. The Kongs looked around in the black ice cave. It was very dark as the ice reflected hardly any light, but on the other side of the cave another small tunnel seemed to continue downwards.

"We should get out of here as soon as we can." Diddy said.

"Yeah, I don't even want to think about what will happen if we're still in here when the mountain sinks back in the ground." Dixie said.

–

The Kongs ran through the black ice caves, looking for the exit. Each cave consisted of a large open cave area with two smaller tunnels, one up and one down, each on opposite sides of the cave, connected to it. Cave after cave they slid down deeper into Mt. Rool. They knew they had to go up, not down, but they didn't have any choice on the smooth ice. They just hoped the caves had an exit in the lower parts of the mountain. After running through a couple of empty caves like this, they entered one with seven rather big Kremlings.

"There you are!" the biggest one said, "Your heads have an appointment with the Kap'n, and we don't want you to miss it!"

The Kremlings approached. Several of them were wielding knives, and they were blocking the only way down.

"I'm sure we can talk this out in some way!" Diddy said while trying to think of a way out of the situation. "Look behind you!"

The Kremlings laughed. "Just how stupid do you think we are, you stinking ape? We've heard that one bef-ack!" the biggest Kremling said as a Zinger stabbed its main stinger right through his back. Panic broke out among the other Kremlings as more Zingers flew down from the roof trying to catch their prey. Diddy and Dixie didn't waste a second and ran through the battle between Kremlings and Zingers into another small tunnel.

"Zingers!" Diddy said while sliding down, "What are they doing in here?"

"No idea," Dixie said, "but for once I'm glad they're around." They emerged into a new cave, with nine Zingers buzzing around this time. "Well, that feeling didn't last very long."

The Kongs ran for the other side of the cave, where another small tunnel led down again. The Zingers descended upon them after a moment, and behind them they could hear the Kremlings and more Zingers bursting into the cave too. Diddy rolled to dodge a Zinger that nearly grabbed him from above, and jumped aside out of another's path. They reached the other tunnel, and slid down, immediately followed by two big Kremlings wielding big knives.

"Let's kall a truce for now, mateys!" one of them shouted ahead as the four of them slid down the tunnel.

"Fine!" Diddy shouted back.

"Me name be Krusha, and this be Kasplat!"

"Our names are Diddy and Dixie!"

They emerged onto the next floor, which was Zingerless for the moment. A second after the Kongs and Kremlings entered the cave buzzing announced the Zingers' arrival on the same floor. It was rather surprising how much speed Krusha and Kasplat managed to make despite their huge size, as they passed the Kongs in this cave. After the Kongs followed them into the tunnel to the next cave, they saw five more Zingers waiting for them there. Krusha and Kasplat swung their knives at the Zingers that attacked them as they hurried for the next tunnel. Kasplat missed one of the Zingers that attacked him and paid for his error as the Zinger stabbed its main stinger right through his throat. Diddy picked up his knife as Dixie and himself passed the scene, where the five Zingers had massed around the dying Kasplat.

The other Zingers still followed the Kongs as they slid into another tunnel. When they appeared into the next cave, the first thing Diddy noticed was the light: the exit was at the end of the cave. The next thing he noticed was that Krusha was trying desperately to hold off four Zingers ganging up on him. For a moment Diddy considered just running on and leaving the Kremling to his fate, but his conscience protested, and he just couldn't help helping.

"Hey, here we are, come and get us!" he shouted at the Zingers. Two of them left Krusha and came for the Kongs now.

"What are you doing?" Dixie asked angry, "Just leave him!"

Diddy thought that was rather callous of her, but didn't have time to argue as the two Zingers attacked. He stabbed one with the knife while running on. The Kongs emerged from the black ice caves with Krusha running only a bit behind them. The remaining Zingers followed them, and the three would defend themselves with the two knives while running away. About every three seconds, the knifeless person would call "Knife!" and one of the others would throw theirs at them. They fled in this fashion for a few minutes until all Zingers had either given up or died. The three of them stood still to catch their breath, panting heavily.

"That was a klose kall, mateys." Krusha said, "I hope my other men are okay."

"We ran into three of them and beat them before we met you." Diddy said.

"That's a shame." Krusha said as he picked up the second knife. "But it reminds me: time to get back to work. ARR, prepare to die, Kongs!"

Dixie gave Diddy a look that seemed to say "I told you so." and they ducked to avoid the knives. Diddy cartwheeled into Krusha, but the Kremling was too though to be knocked down by it.

"We just saved your life!" Diddy said.

"Yeah, thanks for that, mateys, but your lifesaving won't have been of much use if I show up to the Kaptain without your heads."

"Look behind you, a Zinger!" Dixie screamed. Krusha shrieked in fear and turned around, but once he saw there was nothing there and turned around, the Kongs had ran away. He tried to catch up with them, but now that they were no longer on ice, his large mass only slowed him down so he quickly lost them.

–

Most of the snow had melted in the bright light of the Sun. Here and there, patches of wet snow still lay, and shallow puddles of water occasionally dotted the flat landscape. Many dead trees, both fallen and still standing littered the landscape. Not a living thing was in sight. Wherever the Kongs looked, the land was a muddy grey.

"How depressing." Dixie said in a sad voice after a while.

Diddy had to agree. "It looks almost post-apocalyptic."

"It's not surprising, I guess, with all the rapid and violent changes this world goes through, but it does make me wonder how the jungle that first covered the entire place ever grew."

Diddy could hardly believe his eyes. "Look, Dix: green!"

A tiny plant had popped up next to a shallow puddle. It was only a tiny piece of grass, but it gave them some hope in the dreary landscape when they looked down at it. When they looked up from the grass, the sorry grey landscape had been replaced by a sea of green. Tiny little plants grew everywhere, so fast that the eye could see them grow. They soon reached knee-height, and some of them grew thicker woodier stems. They grew larger and larger, soon overshadowing the Kongs, and in a few minutes a lush jungle had grown all around them.

"I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that the plants here have adapted to this place." Dixie said, clearly very surprised.

Diddy knocked on the trunk of the nearest tree to reassure himself that it was a real forest. It seemed so bizarre: five minutes ago, the landscape had been a desolate wasteland. He'd never seen a tree grow with his own eyes, much less seen its entire lifecycle in just a few minutes.

"I've thought of a name for this jungle." Dixie said, "'Squawks Forest'. It appeared unexpectedly and gave us new hope, just like Squawks always does."

"Good name." Diddy said.

As they walked on through the jungle, animal sounds returned. Whether the animals of the Lost World had life cycles as short as the plants or they'd simply come from some other place, neither Diddy nor Dixie knew.

The Lost World seemed rather calm that afternoon. For several hours no more rumbling or tremors appeared, and the jungle remained rather uniform. The Sun was shining very brightly, though, making the heat under the leaves exhausting. After a while, completely dried out leaves started falling from the trees while the green roof of leaves was slowly turning into a dry brown. The ground was completely dehydrated and cracks were starting to appear in it. As happy as the Kongs had been to see the forest grow, so sad were they now that it was already dying.

A weird smell hang between the trees. It smelt a bit like someone was having a barbecue. At the exact same moment, both Kongs realised what it was and looked startled at each other. "Fire!"

They ran from the fire behind them, but they soon saw a lot of smoke coming from other directions too.

"There must be multiple sources of ignition!" Diddy shouted, "Maybe the heat caused leaves to combust spontaneously"

"Even in this heat, that's one hell of a coincidence! I think the Kremlings started the fires to burn us alive."

Diddy had to admit that made more sense, but it turned out they were both wrong: As they ran past it, a large crack in the Earth widened, and terrible heat washed over them as they saw magma barely a metre below the surface. All trees near the chasm caught fire immediately, and the Kongs screamed in pain from the heat and ran away as fast as they could from the magma and the fire. The fire spread rapidly, and the smoke made breathing very hard. Diddy felt panic's icy grasp clutch its hand around his heart.

_Don't panic, please don't panic, just try to think straight._

Smoke came from all directions, including forward now as the fires had fully surrounded them. They stopped and looked around desperately for some way out, and Diddy saw a large burrow, probably a fox or badger's.

"Quick, Dix, get in there!" He shouted and they both crawled into the burrow. It was very small and they couldn't even sit in it, but they both fitted in. When they were both inside, Diddy made sure to collapse the entrance so the fire and smoke could not get in. The roaring sound of the fire outside was outvoiced by the rapid, ragged breaths of both Kongs.

The burrow was very small and claustrophobic, and this added to Diddy's rising panic about the fire. He had to fight the urge to dig his way out of the burrow.

"We have to get out of here!" Dixie said in a panicked voice.

Diddy tried to keep his own thoughts, which were about to enter blind panic too, together and calm Dixie. "We can't Dix, we're safe here. Don't panic, try to breathe normally."

Dixie began clawing at the walls of the burrow. "We have to get out! We'll suffocate in here! We have to get out!"

Diddy tried not to succumb to the urge to start digging too and grabbed her hands. "Dix, we can't go out, there's fire there! You're only making things worse by digging!"

Dixie tried to struggle free. "Let! Me! Go! What if the magma comes? Let me go!"

Her panic was very infectious, and Diddy struggled to keep somewhat calm. He pulled her into an embrace to try and calm her. "Just take a deep breath, Dix, and think of DK Isle. Remember how lush and green it is? And think of the blue of the ocean. This will all pass, and then we'll just look back on it as a memory and we'll swim in the sea again." Dixie's breaths were becoming slightly less jagged, and Diddy felt his own panic lessen. Dixie was no longer trying to struggle free from him. "And remember the bramble forest? Remember how we swam in the cold water, and then I brushed your hair and kissed you? Think of how beautiful the view in that place was, and how cool the water. And think of the peak, how cold it was and how we fought a snowball fight there. And then you pinned me down on the ground and kissed me. Think of the cold snow, and the beautiful stars, and the warmth of that kiss."

Diddy and Dixie had both calmed down now by the happy memories. Their breaths were a lot slower, despite the heat and claustrophobic nature of their hiding place. Dixie had closed her eyes and was breathing normally. It was a while before either of them spoke again.

"Thank you Diddy," Dixie whispered, "I'm sorry I panicked like that. I just couldn't help it."

"It's okay, Dix," Diddy said petting her back, "I was very close to panic myself."

They lay in the small burrow in silence. "How long do you think we should wait before going back outside?" Dixie asked.

Diddy hadn't thought about it yet. "As long as possible, I guess, so we're sure the fire has stopped. I think we should stay here until we begin noticing a lack of oxygen."

They lay in the burrow for a while longer until breathing became harder. Then they dug their way out, and saw an unearthly, yet familiar view. The few trees that hadn't burned down completely were just charred dead trunks. Glowing red lakes of lava dotted the landscape amid hills of dirt and ash. The sky was completely blocked out by thick black smoke. It was infernally hot, at least 80 degrees, and the air was very dirty and difficult to breathe. An ambient red light from the lava was the only source of illumination, except a brighter spot in the black smoke on the horizon where the beam of energy from the crocodile head lighted up the smoke.

"Déjà vu." Dixie said. "It's like the Crocodile Cauldron all over again, innit?"

Diddy coughed. "With one big difference: This time we can just stay right here and wait for the landscape to change into something more habitable."

"I don't think we should risk that. We were only in the Crocodile Cauldron for about 12 hours, but remember how tired and thirsty we were? And the Lost World may stay like this for much longer than that: we know that jungle that was around when we arrived here existed for at least a whole day. We could reach that crocodile head in a lot less than that. I'd also prefer to have something to do to take my mind off the heat and awful air."

"I suppose you're right." Diddy said.

–

The new Lost World soon reminded the Kongs of all those little sensations about the Crocodile Cauldron they'd forgotten. Like the feeling of climbing up a crumbling ash hill with tiny bits of glass mixed in with the ash, or the feeling your throat gets after breathing and coughing awfully warm and polluted air for a few hours, or the overheating sensation when you're sweating in temperatures so high that it offers no cooling whatsoever, or the pain when a fiery hot wind directly from the lava blows into your face, or how sore your eyes get when there's ash in them. It wasn't long before their coughing got so bad that small droplets of blood made their way out with each cough.

Suddenly, Diddy felt a small peck of something he hadn't felt in a while on his shoulder: cold. He looked at his shoulder in surprise, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Then he felt another peck of cold on his other shoulder, and one on his tail a moment later.

Dixie was holding her hand in front of her like a beggar. "Diddy... It's raining!"

Rain came pouring from the sky. The thirsty ground soaked up the water that landed on it immediately, and the lava lakes produced massive hissing sounds. Diddy and Dixie were soon soaked by the rain, and the air was getting a lot easier to breathe as the rain washed the heat and smoke from the air. It wasn't long before the light grey of the clouds could be seen through the dark grey of the smoke. Before the lava lakes had even fully solidified, plants had started growing in the ash. The lava lakes finally became covered in a layer of stone, and the plants grew larger and larger, and soon it was as if the fire had never happened. A new jungle had grown. Diddy and Dixie took a dive into the first pool of water they walked by and drank heartily from it. Rumbling sounded, and tremors rocked the ground as a huge mountain rose from the ground between them and the Krockodile Kore.

"Diddy, there you are!" a low voice called. Diddy looked up from the water and saw a rhinoceros running through the forest.

"Rambi, good to see you made it out of that hive!" Diddy said with glee, recognising the rhinoceros.

"And good to see _you_ managed to rescue your damsel in distress!" Rambi said, causing Dixie to blush embarrassedly.

Diddy introduced Rambi and Dixie. "Dixie, this is Rambi, who helped me save you from the Zingers. Rambi, this is Dixie, my girlfriend. So what are you doing here?"

"Well, I met this parrot, you see, who said he was your friend too and asked for my help to help you get through a 'Lost World'. He managed to find three other buddies of yours, and we decided we'd each help you get past the patrols in the last bit here."

"But why? And how did you get here?"

"K. Rool has most of his Kremlings guard the Krockodile Kore – that's the crocodile-shaped mountain. We figured you would need our help to get past them. As for how we got here, I'm afraid that's a long and very interesting story that I don't have time to tell you right now. I'll tell you later, when I have the time to do it justice. Now get on my back."

The Kongs got out of the water onto Rambi's back, Diddy in front and Dixie behind him, and the rhinoceros ran through the jungle. The rain soon stopped falling.

"Look, Kongs! Get them!"

Several Kremlings attacked them, but Rambi didn't even slow down and just bashed them away. A group tried to block the way, but when Rambi collided with them they flew like they were launched by a cannon.

"You make it seem easy, Rambi!" Dixie said.

"It _is _pretty easy." Rambi said, "You just have to know how to hit them."

"And weigh a ton and a half and have a deadly weapon on your nose." Diddy mumbled so that only Dixie, who giggled at it, heard him.

Loud buzzing sounded and a couple of Zingers descended, trying to catch some prey. Rambi just bashed them aside.

They had reached the mountain, but Rambi wasn't planning to climb it apparently, as he entered an icy cave.

"Rambi, isn't this rather dangerous? If the mountain transforms again..." Diddy said.

"Nah, Enguarde will help you through it. Wonder where he is."

The swordfish popped up from some water. "I'm right 'ere! Bonjour!"

The Kongs got off Rambi's back. "Hey there, Enguarde. I see you're planning to take us swimming in icy water again."

"Eet's not so cold, actually." Enguarde said. "But zere are lots of Lockzhaws around, so we may run into a beet of trouble."

The Kongs thanked Rambi and got onto Enguarde's back. He was right: while the water was rather cold, it wasn't remotely as frigid as the water they'd last ridden him in had been.

"Ready?" Enguarde asked. "Eet may be a while before I can get you to air, so take a deep breath."

Enguarde dived underwater. Despite the two monkeys hanging on to him he was still a very fast swimmer, and shot through the crystal clear water like an arrow from a bow. He was so fast that they had already passed several Lockjaws before they realised he was carrying easy prey for them and attacked him. The Lockjaws behind them didn't stand a chance of catching up to the swift swordfish, but the others swam at him and snapped their huge jaws at him. Enguarde made several swift motions to dodge the Lockjaws' attacks or to defend with his sword-like nose.

About two minutes after they'd dived underwater, Diddy was really starting to feel the urge to breathe. His lungs were burning and his head ached. He looked at Dixie and saw she was having trouble too. They couldn't communicate this to Enguarde, though, and just had to hope he would remember his passengers didn't have gills.

After another minute, when Diddy thought he was going to black out soon, they burst through the water's surface and landed in an icy tunnel. The Kongs gasped for breath and Enguarde flopped around out of the water.

"We'll 'ave to go over ze land for a beet." Enguarde said, "Could you two push me?"

The Kongs pushed Enguarde through the icy tunnel to water on the other side. "Eet ees so weird to be on ze land. I feel so 'eavy and I can't sweem."

The Kongs pushed him through the tunnel and back into the water. He disappeared below the water for a moment to catch his breath and then came back up to take the Kongs on his back. They dived back into the water and didn't run into any more trouble before they reached air again.

"Zees ees as far as I can take you. Sqeetter should be waiteeng for you outside. Good luck"

The Kongs thanked Enguarde, got off his back and stepped on the land. They walked out the cave. The transition from icy cave to warm jungle was very sudden and surprising.

"There you are. Get on my back." Squitter's hoarse voice sounded from above, startling both Kongs. The spider hang on a wire from a tree and lowered himself to the ground.

"Squitter, I thought you didn't like leaving the Gloomy Gulch?" Diddy asked as he sat on the spider's back.

Squitter shot a spider wire at a nearby tree and climbed over the wire. "I do, but this parrot convinced me it was necessary to help you two. You see, he-"

"Giant spider! Help!"

"Shut up, moron! We'll have a lot more to fear than a giant spider if we return to the Kaptain without those monkey's heads! Attack!"

Kremlings attacked them, and the Kongs drew their peanut popguns and started shooting Kremlings, while Squitter spit wire at them that they got entangled in.

"Mmm, they look tasty. It's a shame we don't have time for dinner." Squitter said to the Kongs' disgust.

"Uh... Yeah, real shame." Diddy said diplomatically.

They left the bound and/or unconcious Kremlings behind as they continued through the jungle. They didn't run into anymore trouble for a while, until, all of a sudden, the plants around them started growing rapidly. Soon the forest was getting too thick for them to continue through. A couple of thick thorny plants grew faster than the other plants, spiralling around each other into the air. They formed a thorny tunnel through the air which looked much easier to traverse than the unbelievably thick jungle.

"Squitter, try climbing into that tunnel." Dixie said.

The spider shot a wire at the bramble plants and they climbed into the tunnel.

"Squawk!" Squawks the parrot said as he came flying towards them, "I thought you might try to continue through this tunnel, Squitter! I'll take them from here, it'll be easier for me to cross."

"Thanks, and good luck." Squitter said as the Kongs switched to Squawk.

The thorns were no problem for Squawk, who could easily fly between them. Dark clouds amassed in the sky, and all three of them wondered what kind of change the Lost World would go through this time. They soon got their answer as a fierce wind nearly blew them into a large, sharp thorn. Squawk struggled to keep away from the thorns. Suddenly the wind changed and they flew so close to the thorns on the other side, that one was only a centimetre away from piercing Diddy's left eyeball.

"Squawks!" Diddy shouted against the roaring storm, "this is way to dangerous, turn back and let Squitter do this! With his sticky wires the wind won't trouble him much!"

"It's too late!" Squawks shouted back struggling not to hit the thorns, "The way back would be longer than the way forward!"

Lightning flared up the area, and revealed five all too familiar silhouettes. _Oh please, not now._ Diddy thought desperately as the Zingers approached.

"Zingers! Squawks, concentrate on flying, Dixie and I will try to keep them away!"

The Zingers didn't seem very troubled by the storm. Diddy aimed his popgun and fired a shot at one, but aiming was very hard in the wind as the peanut was blown away after a few metres. The Kongs waited until the Zingers were at point-blank range before shooting. Two of the Zingers fell down, hit in the wings, but the others came closer. Two segmented legs grabbed a hold of Diddy's leg, and he kicked their owner as hard as he could, but with little effect. He tried to shoot the Zinger, who was manoeuvring to stab him with its stinger, but its hard body was in the way to its wings and the peanuts bounced of without effect. The Zinger's spike was at his heart now, and it was about to stab when it fell down into the thorns. Dixie had shot its wings from her more advantageous position.

"Thanks, Dix." He felt more like kissing her to thank her, but since there were still two more Zingers and the storm to deal with, that sort of thing would have to wait.

The tunnel of thorns bent down, and Squawk entered a steep dive that got them out of the way of the Zingers for now and at the end of the thorny tunnel. They were in the jungle once again.

"Sssquawksss!" A hissing voice called, "Hide, thisss ssstorm isss too dangerousss for you. I'll take the Kongsss for the lassst bit!"

The Kongs didn't have time to thank Squawks as he had to hide immediately from the Zingers and the storm and dropped them on Rattly's coiled back.

"Ready? Hold on tight!" Rattly hissed as he made a huge jump that launched them above the trees and the confused Zingers. The massive stormwind blew them way off course, and they landed far away from their launching point. The Zingers attacked and Rattly jumped way over them and the trees again.

"Catccch usss if you can!" Rattly taunted them.

After a few more jumps like this, the Zingers seemed to have caught on. As Rattly jumped again, they positioned themselves so that he would land on their spiked backs. They hadn't counted on the Kongs, however, who clipped their wings with their peanut popguns when they were just above them.

The storm was calming down a bit now. "You're nearly at the Krockodile Kore." Rattly said to the Kongs, "I will leave you now, asss we'd draw to muccch attentttion with my high jumpsss. Good luck in there."

The Kongs thanked Rattly and went on. The Krockodile Kore filled most of the view now that they were so close to it. The only entrance seemed to be its jaws. They walked very carefully between the trees of the jungle, popguns drawn, as they didn't want to be seen. Strangely, though, they soon found out there were no Kremlings near the Krockodile Kore.

"Very suspicious, don't you think?" Diddy said.

"It's probably a trap, isn't it?" Dixie said.

"ARR, lass, that it be!" a huge Kremling who popped up behind them said. The Kongs jumped out of the bush immediately, and dozens of Kremlings came out of hiding, forming a semicircle around them.

"Into the Kore!" Diddy said, as it seemed the only way out.

They ran into the Krockodile Kore's jaws and the Kremlings followed them. It was very dark inside. As they ran into the crocodile head's throat, they came to a dead end. The Kremlings enclosed them. Some of them carried torches, lighting the dark tunnel up.

"Welkome, Derby Kong. I've been waiting for ye." Kaptain K. Rool said with an evil grin.

The Kremlings blocked every way out now. "We be needin' your blood, lad." K. Rool said.

Diddy didn't expect that. "My what?"

"Yer blood. Read the tekst on the wall behind you."

_Behind these doors a power lays,_

_a power that can be used in many ways._

_Many lands kan be conquered with it,_

_anything it's controller sees fit._

_But to open the doors, a hero has to bleed,_

_a hero who helps anyone in their time of need,_

_a hero, free from any greed._

_Of all monkeys the most clever,_

_One smarter was born never._

_For each drop of his blood that is spilled in this room,_

_One millimeter will open of these doors that guard the chamber of doom._

"What an awful poem." Dixie remarked.

"That's what I told the Kap'n too!" a Kremling spoke up.

K. Rool shoved the barrel of his huge gun into the Kremling's face. "Krittik, I've told you before, and I'm not going to tell you again: Shut. Yer. Trap." Krittik's green skin turned white with fear.

Despite circumstances, Diddy gave a little laugh. "You think _I_'m this hero of yours?"

"Not at first, I didn't, lad. When I read that prophecy, the first person to pop into me mind was that big oaf Donkey Kong. After all, he managed to save his banana hoard from me, so I thought it had to be him. And the thought of him losing a lot of blood was hardly unpleasant either, so we kidnapped him and brought him here. I started by chopping a bit off his finger, but it turned out it wasn't his blood we needed. So me nekst thought was that it kould be his skruffy little sidekick, so I decided to kapture ye too."

"Why didn't DK tell us this when we saved him?" Diddy asked.

"Well, I was kwite angry that it wasn't his blood I needed, so I gave him a kouple of good punches. I imagine his miniskule brain was bouncing around in his skull, so his memories from the okkasion are probably not too klear.

Anyway, I decided to kapture ye, but then my ch- I kame up with a much better plan: I'd test ye to see if you were really this hero of the prophecy. I figured if you were, you'd kome after me to save your stupid friend and sukseed. And boy, was my face red when the kannons of my Keep shot your plane down and you disappeared into the Krockodile Kauldron. So I tried to think about who this hero kould be, and was very pleasantly surprised when ye was spotted by me men in the tunnels below me Keep, trying to break in. When ye avoided kapture and managed to survive two traps my technician assured me are infallible (Though I suppose he says that about everything he builds), I was almost certain of it. Then ye managed to kill Kerozene and reskue yer stupid friend from me. Don't worry, though, he won't eskape K. Rool's wrath. I'll make him wish he'd never hatched once we're done here.

So, like the kunning manipulator that I am, I dropped a subtle hint that I was having plans with the Lost World, and ye followed me here. You managed to survive the dangers of this place and got all the way to the Krockodile Kore."

Now that K. Rool had finally finished talking, Diddy put the balls he had been juggling away, and Dixie spit out the bubblegum she was chewing.

"You thought of that whole plan yourself?" Diddy asked.

"Of kourse I did!"

"Huh. I guess you aren't as stupid as you look." Dixie said.

"ARR, you'll regret those words, lass."

"Anyway, what _is_ this power behind these doors? And couldn't you just break the door open or dig around it?"

"ARR, that be a good question, lad. The power behind these doors is none other than the force that konstantly alters this world. A power that kan make mountains appear or disappear in minutes. Imagine the things I kould do with that power... Like, say, sinking a certain island full of meddlesome monkeys into the depths of the ocean! And of kourse we tried breaking or drilling through the door, but this whole mountain is made of some kind of stone that's harder than even diamond. The only other entrance is the hole in the top of the mountain where that energy beam komes through, but I diskovered anyone trying to get in that way is incinerated by the beam. The only way in is spilling yer blood, so I think it's about time we sliced ye open."

The bloodthirsty reptillian pirates approached. "Wait!" Diddy said, "I can't be the hero you're looking for. I'm not free of greed: I stole some bananas from DK a few times. And jealousy is a form of greed, and I was very jealous of DK when he took all the credit for retrieving the banana hoard. I also doubt I'm the smartest monkey ever born, and I nearly left Dixie to die when she was in need." He felt very embarrassed at that last memory.

"I don't think ye're the smartest monkey ever born either, lad. (Though that position kan't be up against much kompetition) I figure whoever wrote this got rather karried away on the whole hero-thing and embellished it."

"How do you know it will actually work?" Diddy asked, "How do you know it's not just some meaningless text someone wrote on a wall with no actual truth?"

K. Rool thought for a moment. "I guess I don't know that. But we'll soon find out when ye're sliced open!"

The Kremlings approached, weapons drawn. "Stop!" Dixie shrieked, "I'm the one you're looking for!"

K. Rool seemed to notice her for the first time. "What? You?"

Diddy didn't like where this was going. "Dixie, don't, please."

"Sorry Diddy, but I have to speak the truth. I am the hero you're looking for. I did most on this quest. I helped everyone in need I came by, including Diddy when he got captured, and I have never felt greedy in my life. I'm also really smart. So don't kill Diddy. (Look, there's me helping someone in need again)"

"Hmm... Ye're probably lying, but just to be sure, we'll slice both of ye open."

"That was one brilliant plan." Diddy said sarcastically.

"Shut up, it just backfired a bit." Dixie replied.

The Kremlings approached with their weapons drawn. At the very last moment, Diddy and Dixie jumped as high up as they could, onto the heads of Kremlings. They jumped rapidly between Kremlings, trying to get out in the ensuing chaos. But dozens more Kremlings were packed into the tunnel, making their escape that way very unlikely. A seething pain shot through Diddy's left arm as a Kremling's sword gave him a deep cut, and at the same time a rumbling sound sounded as the wall split open and a bright light illuminated the cave. The Kongs turned around on Kremling heads and jumped through the narrow crack in the wall, which was just wide enough for them but not wide enough for the Kremlings.

"ARR, you morons! Ye let them get in!" K. Rool shouted furiously.

Diddy and Dixie had entered a large room that was illuminated by the bright beam of energy that shot from the ground into a hole in the roof in the middle of the room. Leading up to it were stairs covered in a blue carpet with weird markings on it. The room was filled with crocodile statues and weird banners. Dixie grabbed Diddy's arm and pinched it hard.

"We have to stop the bleeding before the Kremlings can get through that door." she said. Diddy ripped a bit off a nearby banner and they used that as a bandage.

"Dimbly and Mixer Kong!" K. Rool shouted through the crack in the wall, "You have no food in there and we guard the only exit. Surrender and we'll let the girl live. Possibly."

Diddy shouted back, making sure not to come in actual sight of the crack, as the Kremlings might throw a knife through it. "Kaptain K. Rool! We have an immense sort of energy in here and as soon as we figure out how to use it you're in deep trouble. So let us out of here and we'll let you live. Possibly."

There was a lot of nervous whispering on the other side. K. Rool said something, and a voice that sounded distorted answered.

"Right," K. Rool said, "men, I've had a great idea: Now that there's an opening between these doors, we may be able to widen it with a krowbar."

"Uh oh. We'd better figure out this energy thing quickly." They walked to the centre of the room. "What do you think we should do?"

Dixie seemed as puzzled as he was. "Maybe we should talk to it or something?" She scraped her throat. "Oh, great energy thingie! Will you please kill the band of bloodthirsty pirates at your doors?"

The energy beam just kept flowing up apathically. "Maybe it should be a command?" Diddy said, "Oh great landscaper changer thing! I command you to obey us!"

The energy beam did nothing. _Time for a bluff._ Diddy thought. "HAHAHA, I can feel the power coarse through me! Kremlings, if you're still there when I turn around, you'll regret it!"

He turned around. The Kremlings were still there, and were apparently making progress at widening the door.

"Yer bluffing, lad." K. Rool said, "I know the eksakt wording you need to use for that thing to listen, and you didn't use it. Now surrender and die!" They widened the crack a bit more, and it was now close to wide enough for the Kremlings. "When this krack is wide enough," K. Rool commanded his men, "none of you skurvy dogs are to enter. I'm the only one who's going to get his hands on that power, and if any of ye try to step through that door I'll have ye boiled alive."

"We can't let that energy fall into his hands." Diddy said. "The consequences could be disastrous."

Dixie gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. "For good luck." she said.

The Kremlings pushed K. Rool through the gap, which now was just wide enough for him to fit through. He pointed the gun at the two Kongs.

"Now I've got ye!" he said with an insane grin, "You've put up a decent fight, but now it's time for me to give the two of you yer permanent and painful farewell from this world!"

He pointed the huge gun, pushed a few buttons, and a rain of large cannonballs erupted from the gun. The Kongs could barely dodge the barrage, but the cannonballs hit the statue behind them. The force of the impact caused the statue to shatter and sent stone shards and debris flying through the room. The Kongs were showered in spliters of stone, and a large stone hit Diddy hard in the back, knocking him down and causing terrible pain to his back and ribs. Dixie was in a similar predicament and had fallen down in the middle of a field of rubble too. The door slowly opened a bit more.

K. Rool aimed his gun straight at them. "Time to die, Kongs." Diddy and Dixie struggled to get up, but the debris had hit them too hard, and they just couldn't manage it. "Or maybe I'll just let you watch me klaim this immense power I will use to rule the world first, so you kan get a good taste of defeat before I kill you. Soon the seas will run red with the blood of my enemies!" He stepped up to the beam of energy. "Kolossal power of the Lost World! Kaptain Kermit Rool kommands you to-" he stopped as he noticed Kremling and Kong alike were giggling. "What?"

"Kermit?" Diddy laughed, despite the pain it caused to his hurt ribs while he slowly managed to stand up. "Your name is 'Kermit'?"

K. Rool turned to him, looking furious now. "Yes, it is. And stop with the laughing!"

Dixie, who had also managed to get up, was giggling uncontrollably. "You look upset. I guess it really _is_ not that easy, being green."

Both Kongs and all the Kremlings erupted into loud laughter at that. K. Rool looked incredibly angry. "Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!" He screamed at the Kremlings, who stopped laughing. "You two think you kan make a fool out of the mighty Kaptain K. Rool? I'm the master chef around here, and you are two grilled geese who have dared to laugh at the master chef! And do you know what happens to laughing geese?"

Diddy was puzzled. "I don't think you quite have the hang of metaphors yet. Kermit." he and Dixie laughed again at the name, and a few Kremlings cautiously joined in too.

"THEY DIE!" He started firing his gun again in a blind rage. Cannonballs struck the room, and many more crocodile statues exploded, though Diddy and Dixie kept away from the explosions this time. A large piece of stone, round like and a bit bigger than a cannonball landed just before Dixie's feet. She used her hair to pick it up, and Diddy realised what she was planning. He drew his peanut popgun and fired several shots at K. Rool, but in his rage he seemed not to even feel them.

Diddy tried to draw K. Rool's attention. "Don't be upset, Kermit! You're green, and it'll do fine. It's beautiful."

K. Rool furiously tried to hit Diddy, who made sure not to come near Dixie who was now running at the enraged K. Rool. It seemed, though, that his rage was not quite as blind as they'd thought, as he suddenly turned when she was very close around and fired a bullet straight at her. She managed to almost dodge it, but her side was hit, and she dropped the stone and was launched spinning into the air. She didn't get up when she landed.

"Dixie!" _Oh no, please be okay!_ Diddy didn't have any more time to worry. He ran to the stone, dodging cannonballs, picked it up, and threw it into the gun's mouth just as K. Rool fired another shot. The cannonball and rock collided in the gun. Pressure mounted as the superheated gases in the gun had nowhere to go, and the metal barrel of the gun ruptured, causing the whole gun to explode, knocking K. Rool backwards into the bright beam of energy.

K. Rool was immediately launched up through the hole in the roof by the beam, but the moment he was in it was enough to refract part of the energy. It hit the ceiling of the cave, and blew a hole through the incredibly hard stone as if it were cheese. Part of the ceiling broke off and collapsed into the beam itself. Diddy picked Dixie up, noting with relief that she was still breathing. He ran at the door as the energy behind him couldn't go anywhere and built up. "RUN!" He shouted at the stunned Kremlings, who obeyed his command and ran out of the Kore. The locked up energy shaked the Kore, and massive rocks fell from the ceiling.

The Kore was collapsing all around Diddy while Dixie opened her eyes.

"Did I miss something?" she asked as she saw a large boulder fly over Diddy's head and crush three Kremlings.

"Just a bit, I'll help you catch up later." Diddy said. They left the jaws of the Kore, and ran into the jungle. Finally they looked back. The Kore had completely collapsed into a huge pile of rubble. The energy of the beam locked inside melted the rubble, and finally managed to fight its way through and radiated out into the sky as it had always done. Slowly the molten stone cooled and solidified into a smooth mountain from a single piece of diamond-hard rock.

"Good job, Diddy!" Dixie said hugging him, "You killed K. Rool and made sure no-one will ever be able to get their hands on that energy again."

Diddy blushed. "It was your idea. And I'm not sure if K. Rool is dead. He's proved to be surprisingly sturdy in the past."

–

A few days later

"And another thing: team up? I've never heard such rubbish in my life! In my days, I was on my own! I had no fancy backup!" Cranky said.

"Yeah, yeah, I know." Diddy said bored. Cranky had started talking to him quite early in the victory party, and hadn't stopped pointing out how easy he'd had it and how much better Cranky could've done it yet.

"And you're looking a bit fat, kiddo! Look at me, I'm in my physical peak! There's a lot you could learn from me."

"Yeah, you're a true atlethe."

"Diddy, I thought you were useless on your last adventure, but Dixie is even worse! It should've just been me on my own, that it should!"

"Maybe you could've bored K. Rool to death?"

"And Dixie should've been a token female princess waiting to be rescued instead of a main character!"

Diddy had had enough. "Look, just because when you fancied a girl you kidnapped her and threw barrels at her boyfriend doesn't mean a girl can't be a hero too. Dixie is a much better adventurer than you ever were, and I wouldn't have made it without her."

Cranky made a few weird noises as he struggled to find something to say. Then he just turned around looking for someone else to bother, though Diddy still heard him mutter under his breath:

"And what sort of name is Dixie anyway? In my days, you were lucky to have a name at all!"

Finally freed of Cranky, Diddy looked around for Dixie. He found her talking to her sister Tiny and her cousin Chunky Kong, apparently recounting the battle with Kerozene. He beckoned Dixie to follow him, and she excused herself and followed him. They left the party at the beach and went to the mountain's precipice, which was not far away.

"Where are we going?" Dixie asked.

"You'll see." Diddy said. They reached the rockwall, and Diddy began climbing. It was a pretty easy climb, though it was very hard to find. In fact, he was pretty sure he was the only person on the island to know the spot they were going to. "Come on, it's a bit up."

They climbed, and eventually reached a very small plateau with a bit of grass on it. It was just large enough for the two of them to sit and had an absolutely stunning view of the western horizon, where the Sun was setting in the sea. Dixie gasped as she saw the beautiful sight. The last bit of the Sun was still above the horizon, and Venus' brilliant point of light was already visible higher in the sky. Close to it were two weaker points of light, one white and one red, of Mars and Jupiter. The last sunlight of the day was mirrorred in the waves on the sea.

"Wow." Dixie said in awe.

They just sat there hand in hand watching the Sun set and the first stars appear in the sky.

"DK invited me to go on vacation with him to the Northern Kremisphere. I haven't said yes yet, because I wanted to ask you if you don't mind it first."

"I don't mind." Dixie said, "You need to spend time with your other friends too, after all. I hear the Cotton-top Cove is incredibly pretty this time of year."

Diddy smiled. "Thanks. Funky is setting up a boat-renting place there, so we're traveling there in his plane."

They silently watched the stars appear for a while.

Dixie said, "Thanks for telling everyone honestly about my part in the adventure. They all seem very eager to think that only one person went on the adventure, don't they?"

"Weird, isn't it? Everyone seems to think I did everything, and seem surprised when I tell them about the things you did, and how I'd never have made it without you. Cranky gave me a bit of a hard time about needing a girl's help."

Dixie smiled. Their heads came closer together, their lips found each other, and they kissed. Diddy looked into Dixie's emerald eyes reflecting the stars and her radiant smile and realised this was the perfect moment to tell her.

"Dixie, I like you." he whispered.

A single tear appeared in the corner of Dixie's eye, and her smile grew a bit at the same time. She brought her head forwards and kissed him again. "I like you too, Diddy."

–

AUTHOR'S NOTES: And that's the end of the fic! Thanks to everyone who read it, and even more thanks to those who reviewed. Writing this was a lot of fun, but I'm very lazy and reviews really help me get into the spirit of writing (It's no coincidence that most chapters got posted about a week after someone reviewed).

I just realised this fic took exactly 3 years to write: I published chapter one on 23 January 2008 and posted this chapter on 23 January 2011. I didn't plan it out that way, it just happened coincidentially.

Now, let's talk sequel. As I wrote in the author's notes to chapter 8, I've been considering doing a sequel. It will not be based on any of the other Donkey Kong games, but be a new adventure. It will still star Diddy and Dixie, and the villains will be Kremlings. That's all I can say about it at the moment. I don't know when you can expect the first chapter, but check the DKC fanfic place often and/or put me on your Author Alert if you want to read it.

Before I'll start the sequel, I'll first go through each chapter of this story and do some rewriting. Fixing errors, making sentences and dialogues flow better, maybe add something to the rather bare-bones Krem Quay chapter, things like that. Don't worry: I am not George Lucas, so Dixie will still throw eggs first.

Update: Now the rewrites are completely done and I'll soon start the sequel. While I hardly changed a thing about the latter chapters, the earlier chapters (especially the first four) required some extensive rewriting and have, in my opinion, really improved by it.

If you have any questions about the fic, you can still post them in the reviews. While they won't be answered in future 'Readers' Questions' thingies, I will still respond to them.


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